In a statement published in today’s Daily Mirror Trinity Mirror the owner of the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People has apologised publicly to “all its victims of phone hacking”.
In the statement Trinity Mirror says
Some years ago voice-mails left on certain people’s phones were unlawfully accessed. And in many cases the information obtained was used in stories in our national newspapers.
Such behaviour represented an unwarranted and unacceptable intrusion into people’s private lives.
It was unlawful and should never have happened, and fell far below the standards our readers expect and deserve.
We are taking this opportunity to give every victim a sincere and unreserved apology for what happened.
The apology concludes by assuring readers that
Such behaviour has long since been banished from Trinity Mirror’s business and we are committed to ensuring it will not happen again
At the same time Trinity Mirror issued a trading update to the Stock Exchange in which it noted that it had increased provision for civil claims by two thirds, from £4 million to £12 million. The statement noted
As the process of dealing with the civil claims has progressed, it has become evident that the cost of resolving these claims will be higher than previously envisaged. Therefore, at the full year the Company will increase the provision charged for dealing with and resolving civil claims, announced in its Interim Statement, by £8 million to £12 million. Inevitably there remains some uncertainty as to how matters will progress and whether or not new allegations or claims will emerge and their possible financial impact. The Company continues to co-operate with the Metropolitan Police Service in their ongoing investigations and it takes all allegations seriously. The Company has today published an open apology to the victims of phone hacking in the Daily Mirror and plans to publish the same apology in the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People this weekend.
The public apology can be contrasted with what has been described as the company’s previous “ostrich like” response to phone hacking and the attitude of previous management, former Chief Executive Sly Bailey having told the Leveson Inquiry that there was no need for conduct an investigation into phone hacking.
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