Lawyers representing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) argued in London's High Court that Prince Harry should be awarded a maximum of £500 ($637) in damages for one admitted instance of
unlawful information gathering. The case involves over 100 individuals suing MGN, the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, and Sunday People, over allegations of phone-hacking and unlawful information gathering spanning from 1991 to 2011.
During the trial, lawyers for the claimants alleged that unlawful activities were widespread across all three MGN newspapers. Prince Harry, who is fifth-in-line to the throne, spent a day-and-a-half in the witness box, facing questioning regarding allegations of unlawful targeting by MGN titles over a 15-year period starting in 1996, when he was a child.
At the beginning of the trial, MGN's lawyer, Andrew Green, offered an apology to Prince Harry for one instance of unlawful information gathering. MGN admitted that a private investigator had been employed to unlawfully collect evidence about Prince Harry at a London nightclub in 2004 and expressed "unreserved apologies" for the incident.
In court filings released on Tuesday, MGN contended that Prince Harry had not provided evidence of voicemail interception or any other unlawful information gathering regarding his private information, apart from the acknowledged incident. MGN's argument for awarding just £500 in damages was based on the assertion that the single invoice related to inquiries on an isolated occasion and the small sum on the invoice (£75) indicated limited inquiries.
The trial, which began in May, is set to conclude this week. Photo by DoD News, Wikimedia commons.