Extensive Phone Hacking by MGN

[Roussette]

So... Harry has won his case.

As lawyers are saying now... this is massive. 15 out of 33 accusations of hacking by Harry were upheld as a result of phone hacking and other illegal practices.
Hacking and blagging were even taking place during the Leveson enquiry.

He has won damages of £140,000 plus. And before this thread descends into Harry hate, please think of all the other claimants who have also had their claims upheld and damages awarded to them. They went through hell, medical records hacked and reported on, trackers on cars, phones hacked...

It's not about the money, it's about 'accountability of power'.

@Shrammed I think it's a massive stretch to say the Mirror do anything that can be termed investigative journalism. The stories they did run had huge race baiting and anti immigrant sub themes. And @Angrycat2768 what they did with Stephen Laurence was utterly despicable.

I think society will be fine without tabloids and gossip rags, we don't need media like that.

They are pretty much already replaced by the likes of Twitter, YouTube, the likes of Celebitchy and misinformed bloggers. It’s a completely different realm,where no one can be held accountable.

The problem is that we don't have media diversity. Most of our media is run by foreign nationals with an agenda. What we need is a proper Independent Press standards and complaints authority to make sure the doorstepping etc does not happen. The tabloids have diminished themselves and their profession to the point that no one will cry tears if they disappear, because most people just see them as sources of gossip and tittle tattle with no journalistic merit.

Exactly! excellent post.

I may be stating the obvious here but these are all historic claims! We do have press standards. Social media is far, far worse than anything the tabloids said or did years ago.

I don't think you'll find Harry's phone hacked or even his poor df's tampongate lewrid stories leaked nowadays.

We've got to vigorously protect the freedom of the press to be able to investigate for matters of public interest though.

Door stepping, some secret filming, unnamed, protected sources etc are tools which have uncovered important stories and serious corruption etc.

I'd hope any new regulation would find a way to protect investigative journalism for those types of stories.

It would be good to ban unnamed sources for anything that is just gossip and filler though - which accounts for about 90 percent of the royal tabloid stories.

An unnamed (to the public*) source who has information about the widespread mistreatment of royal staff for example is one type of story which could be argued to be in the public interest.

An anonymous palace representative who says that they saw one royal duchess crying after a meeting with another royal duchess is gossip. And in those cases I'd like to see the sources named or the story not reported.

*unnamed to the public doesn't mean only the one reporter knows the source. A well researched story should be sharing source information with at least a senior editor and a lawyer from the legal team.

Otherwise I suspect a lot of these 'palace sources' are just the reporter claiming to their editor they have a source inside but use that to embellish and make claims up.

Excellent post, Wordler - the problem being that those who'd be in charge of press regulation are often the exact people who'd abuse it to hide their own activities rather than working in the wider public's interests

There were about 140 'incidents' that Harry's barrister put to the court for consideration. Most were rejected out of hand and not examined in detail for such reasons that they occurred in South Africa and another country and as such not in the court's jurisdiction. 33 went forward for consideration and examination as they at least had some possibility of succeeding.

Did William get a £1 million settlement out of court? I know he and kate gave the awards to charity. MGN have already paid millions in out of court settlement, possibly including to Chelsy Davy as she didn't take part in this action? I think there's usually a NDA slapped on the settlement.

I disagree that Meghan wasn't very popular initially. Harry said on Netflix and in Spare that Meghan outshone the other royals and they were jealous of her, especially when she knocked them all off the front page. Surely you remember the 'it's not my fault' whimper?. 'Straight out of Compton' and 'exotic blood' are the only two incidences of racism in the actual newspapers, neither of which I saw at the time. My impression was it was very positive initially. I think things when south following the South African tour.

The problem is, some people will always seek out the sort of information these outlets peddle. If it doesn't come from bodies who are legally-bound-to-ethics (as laughable as those ethics might look from the outside) and have a pseudo-accountable corporate structure (accountability proven by this court case), then they will turn more towards the misinformation on social media. Which is detrimental to the fabric of society and getting people to follow mass instructions that might save their lives (look at how the tabloids all rallied together to handle Covid, for example. If this was left to social media where conspiracies flourished, a lot more would be dead and even the initial food and toilet paper shortages due to panic buying would have been a lot worse if they hadn't been "handled" carefully).

We need low-level news sources for low-level people. Without them, people with a low reading age and level of comprehension will not turn to broadsheets.

I think social media is far far more dangerous than the tabloids and magazine.

I know FFS,

The Republicans were clearly fuck ups but frankly the press and the other party ie the democrats standing for the seat should have caught it before the election and during it beat them over head with it and used it to cast doubt on other seats and other Republican candidates - that was their job.

So yes the Republican were shit for having him as a candidate ( but they had Trump so on form as it were ) - but fact press and other party standing against him failed to pick it up is a massive failing as well - one that went round the world and made them all look like complete fools.

We need low-level news sources for low-level people. Without them, people with a low reading age and level of comprehension will not turn to broadsheets

Could there ever be a more condescending and elitist sentence?

I agree - clearly the balance is very wrong at the minute and I though that was why PH win was so important.

But clearly we still need a press that holds people in power to account - so wishing it all gone is frankly more than a little worrying.

That is your opinion - it is different to actual facts.

Do they do enough no - have they done none at all - well clearly no.

It's why I think they need a second Leveson enquiry to help find the balance because clearly the press can't manage it yet the balanced existed in the past and I don't buy it can't be found now because that's a cop out for everyone.

We seem to be forgetting these phone hacking stories are historic. They're not likely to occur in the present day is this form. Loads of leaking 'friends', social media leaks and so on though, so it will never go away until people are far more careful.

Agree. It’s nothing new, just a couple of people getting their payout for being a victim of something that has been known for years. Maybe there will be more claimants, idk, the result wasn’t as resounding as I think they wanted. This is also limited to stories that were sourced illegally - most of the unfavourable coverage of Harry that he doesn’t like and wants to discredit was lawfully sourced. Plus all of the guilty parties are gone. Piers Morgan hasn’t worked for The Mirror for years. Like you say, social media is the big problem now. This is kind of old news.

Excellent post, Wordler - the problem being that those who'd be in charge of press regulation are often the exact people who'd abuse it to hide their own activities rather than working in the wider public's interests

Yes agree with you here @Puzzledandpissedoff

I hope this doesn't seem too far off topic I think it is valid given the topic of the thread. I had lunch today with someone who has a relative who works for Reach. The relative has told her that there are redundancy meetings going on this week and he expects that, even if he survives this round, redundancy is inevitable. The printed media has been under growing pressure because of online news sources but the likelihood of multiple pay-outs could well be the final nail.

I am sorry for those who will lose their jobs, at least, those who have not been involved in nefarious practices but so many areas of life in the UK would be healthier without the malign influence of our gutter press.

There were about 140 'incidents' that Harry's barrister put to the court for consideration. Most were rejected out of hand and not examined in detail for such reasons that they occurred in South Africa and another country and as such not in the court's jurisdiction. 33 went forward for consideration and examination as they at least had some possibility of succeeding.

That's not what happened.

Its in the judges comments.

▪︎ The 148 articles have not been rejected. They haven't been examined/looked at yet.

▪︎ 33 articles were selected as 'test'' or sample articles. Harry's barrister selected some and the Mirror barrister selected some.

▪︎ the Judge has now made the determination on the 33 test articles. They will now look at Harry's remaining 115 articles and use the judges findings to rule on these articles. As well as all the other claimants who are part of this case.

In order to make the trial manageable within the 7 weeks allotted for it, a selection of 33 ( from 148 ) of Prince Harry's articles was agreed by the parties as a representative sample. This includes articles chosen by either side, so for that reason some are likely more strongly to support the Duke's case and others are more likely to support MGN's case that the article contained only material already in the public domain or facts that were not within the scope of Article 8 protection at all. The articles were also selected to cover the full period about which the Duke complains that UIG was being conducted, namely 1996 – 2011. It is expected that determination of this sample, in his case, will enable him and MGN to resolve the remainder of his claim by agreement. As will become apparent, the Duke appeared much more concerned to establish the full, broad picture about MGN's illegal activities than to be compensated for individual instances of UIG.

I'm afraid you're wrong, again. Most were not 'rejected'.

There are 100 or so claimants. They decided to test some of these cases. 4 claimants were chosen and some of their claims. Harry has 148 claims, and 33 were chosen as 'test cases'. If you had read the judgement you would know that now the remaining cases will be discussed, based on the outcome of this test case. Same as all the other claimants.

William settled with a different group, NGN,- News Group Newspapers, not MGN.

Actually it's facts.

this is what the mirror say they do- even they do not dare claim this fanciful champion of investigative journalism. Where are your facts?

The Mirror is a tabloid. Publications engaging in tabloid journalism are known as rag newspapers or simply rags.

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Sorry to repeat what you had just said @minou123

@minou123 As some of these cases occurred out of the country they were rejected out of hand.

This is kind of old news.

However much posters want to consign this to 'old news' that is not the case.. It's just become more sophisticated. Even dot gov talks about online cyber security, hacks for hire, etc

• The irresponsible use of spyware against individuals is almost certainly happening at scale, with thousands of people targeted every year.
• We should expect to see high-profile exposures of victims who have been targeted through unethical and illegal use of sophisticated and cost-effective commercial cyber tools or hackers for hire continue over the next five years.

@meercat23 Thanks for your post. I feel sorry for those principled people out of a job because of the shady practices.

Why do posters keep saying that 100 claims have been rejected when it's been explained time and time again on here, that is not the case.

No worries, you put it more succinctly than I did.