It looks like another one of Rupert Murdoch’s companies, News Group Newspapers (NGN) is in hot water – this time for something that makes the Dominion case almost pale in comparison. And it’s not making the royal family look good either, something they would hope to avoid in the lead up to the coronation.
In his testimony, Prince Harry has revealed that his brother, Prince William, heir to the British throne, was on the receiving end of a large sum after suing multiple tabloids for hacking into his phone in the early 2000’s. To put this in perspective, William would have been about twenty when this hacking occurred, and Harry only a teenager. The information about this civil case and the settlement became public knowledge in a witness statement submitted by Harry as he takes on News Group Newspapers.
Harry’s lawyers state that this information is only coming out now as an effort to stop the courts from tossing out the case due to the time that’s passed between the incident and now, something that NGN is pushing hard for.
According to Harry’s testimony, The Sun hacked his phone in an attempt to gather information on his dating life before he met his wife, Meghan Markle. In this particular filing, it is stated that William was also hacked, and in a bid to keep this out of the courts, and therefore the headlines, the royal family quietly worked a settlement deal behind the scenes.
As part of this secret deal, Harry claims that he and his brother would “delay legal proceedings against the newspaper group in return for receiving an apology at a later date. The court documents go on to state that “the reason for this was to avoid the situation where a member of the royal family would have to sit in the witness box and recount the specific details of the private and highly sensitive voicemails that had been intercepted by [the News of the World royal reporter] Clive Goodman.”
Prince William’s public relations office has declined to comment on the “ongoing legal process.”