On 15 June 2023 Fancourt J, handed down judgment in the case of Duke of Sussex and Ors v MGN Limited [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch). In a 386 page, 1679 paragraph judgment, the judge made damning findings concerning the Mirror Group’s engagement in phone hacking and other unlawful information gathering over many years.
He held that senior executives and editors were aware of this. He gave judgment for the Duke of Sussex in the sum of £140,600 and judgment for Michael Turner in the sum of £31,650. The claims of the other two claimants Ms Sanderson and Mr Wightman are dismissed on limitation grounds.
In his press summary of the judgment [pdf], the judge identified five important points: (1) The period during which Mirror Group was engaging in phone hacking and other unlawful gathering (outside the period 1999 to 2006 in which “extensive and habitual” phone hacking had already been established); (2) which private investigators had been acting unlawfully on behalf of Mirror Group; (3) At what stage directors of Trinity Mirror and in house lawyers knew that phone hacking was been carried out by journalists and editors; (4) Whether the claims of Nikki Sanderson and Fiona Wightman were barred by the Limitation Act; (5) whether damages for distress as a consequence of statute barred publication claims can be recovered.
In relation to the periods of unlawful activity, the Judge found that there was some unlawful activity in 1995, widespread unlawful activity and phone hacking from 1996 onwards. He found that unlawful information gathering and phone hacking continued throughout the period 2006 to 2011 and even to some extent during the Leveson Inquiry.
The Judge found that 11 private investigators (and their associates) were used very substantially by Mirror Group journalists and editors in connection with extensive and habitual unlawful information gathering and phone hacking activities. They were an integral part of the system that existed at all three newspapers to collect private information unlawfully and then publish it. Another 13 private investigators (and their associates) did a significant amount of unlawful information gathering work for Mirror Group. There were then a further 14 private investigators where there was no sufficient evidence of unlawful activity at all, or in more than an isolated case and 10 more based abroad and there was no case proved that what they were doing abroad was unlawful, even though it would have been unlawful in England and Wales.
On the third issue, the only directors of Trinity Mirror plc and Mirror Group who knew before the end of 2011 about phone hacking being carried on at Mirror Group’s newspapers were Paul Vickers, the group legal director, and Sly Bailey, the chief executive officer. The board as a whole was not told about it. The likelihood of extensive illegal activity should have been investigated properly by Ms Bailey and Mr Vickers, at the latest in early 2007, but it never was. Instead, it was concealed from the board, from Parliament in 2007 and 2011, from the Leveson Inquiry, from shareholders, and from the public for years, and the extent of it was concealed from claimants in the Mirror Newspapers Hacking Litigation and even from the court at and before the trial in 2015. The company’s in-house lawyers knew about the use of phone hacking and extensive unlawful information gathering because of their involvement in “legalling” articles for publication. He found that Mr Marcus Partington, who became the Deputy Group Legal Director under Mr Vickers from 2007 and then Group Legal Director in 2014, when Mr Vickers left Trinity Mirror, was aware of the use of illegal phone hacking from no later than the end of 2003. The judge had no doubt that the editors of all three Mirror Newspapers at the relevant time (including Piers Morgan) knew about phone hacking and unlawful information gathering.
The Judge found that, if Ms Wightman and Ms Sanderson had been reasonably attentive to the news and social media they could reasonably have found out that they had a worthwhile claim by October 2014 and, as a result, their claims were barred by the Limitation Act.
Finally, where private information that was unlawfully obtained was then published by Mirror Group newspapers, the unlawful obtaining of the information was both a factual and a legal cause of the distress and other losses resulting from the publication.
In relation to the Duke of Sussex, the Judge found that 15 out of the 33 articles tried were products of phone hacking or unlawful information gathering. He awarded damages in relation to each of these and also aggravated damages, in the total sum of £140,600.
In relation to Michael Turner, the Judge found that were 4 articles were phone hacking or unlawful information gathering was proved. Damages, including aggravated damages of £31,650 were awarded.
Media coverage of the decision was, predictably, mixed. Coverage in the tabloid press was strangely muted. As Liz Gerrard pointed out on X, although the Mail, Sun, Express and Mirror have splashed the Royals on the front page 127 times between over the past year, none of them ran a front page story about the case today. The story did feature on the front page of the Guardian. The Telegraph covered Piers Morgan’s bizarre claim, in response, to the Judge’s finding against him, that “Harry is ‘on mission to destroy monarchy’
The decision was covered in detail by the BBC, both on its website and in broadcasts and by Sky News and ITV News.
Hacked Off CEO Nathan Sparkes commented
“Today’s judgement lays bare the extraordinary cover-up which has taken place at Mirror Group Newspapers over the last two decades. It paints the picture of a rotten corporate culture, desperate to escape accountability at all costs. Other newspaper groups will also be looking over their shoulders, as this judgement shows that justice may yet catch up with them all.
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