Beautiful Virgin Islands

Sunday, Sep 21, 2025

Prince William ‘received phone hacking payout from newspaper group’

Prince William ‘received phone hacking payout from newspaper group’

Prince William quietly settled a phone hacking claim against Rupert Murdoch’s UK media organisation for a “very large sum of money”, the High Court heard.
The Prince of Wales reached a settlement with News Group Newspapers (NGN), the publishers of The Sun and the News of the World, in 2020, according to documents filed in his brother Prince Harry’s latest legal case.

Harry, the Duke of Sussex, says he has been forced to air details of his brother’s case for the first time, as he battles an attempt by NGN to stop his own phone hacking legal claim.

And he has also revealed a “secret agreement” said to have been struck in 2012 by the media organisation to settle phone hacking claims brought by the Royal household, which Harry says has not been honoured by NGN.

“It is important to bear in mind that in responding to this bid by NGN to prevent his claims going to trial, (Harry) has had to make public the details of this secret agreement, as well as the fact that his brother, His Royal Highness, Prince William, has recently settled his claim against NGN behind the scenes, having had to hold off bringing a claim for years for the same reasons as the Claimant”, said the Duke’s barrister David Sherborne, in written submissions to the court.

“His brother, HRH William, Prince of Wales, similarly brought a claim against NGN which it settled for a very large sum of money in 2020.”

Harry, together with actor and activist Hugh Grant, is bringing a phone hacking claim against NGN, with a trial due to take place this summer.

The Duke of Sussex is relying on more than 200 news articles which he says were the product of phone hacking or unlawful activity by journalists and investigators.

Harry claims his grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, were among the people who struck the ‘secret agreement’ with NGN, including with chief executive Rebekah Brooks.

He says the Queen agreed in 2017 that he could “pursue a resolution to matters with NGN”, accusing the firm of “filibustering” to avoid reaching a settlement.

In a statement, Harry said he and his brother were told of the deal by the Royal Family lawyers, leading them to believe they could not pursue legal claims themselves any earlier.

“The rationale behind this was that a secret agreement had been reached between the institution and senior executives at NGN whereby members of the Royal Family would bring phone hacking claims only at the conclusion of the Mobile Telephone Voicemail Interception Litigation and at that stage the claims would be admitted or settled with an apology”, he said.

“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 (ex-News of the World Royal Editor) Clive Goodman.

“The institution was incredibly nervous about this and wanted to avoid at all costs the sort of reputational damage that it had suffered in 1993 when The Sun and another tabloid had unlawfully obtained and published details of an intimate telephone conversation that took place between my father and step-mother in 1989, while he was still married to my mother.

“This agreement, including the promises from NGN for delayed resolution was, obviously, a major factor as to why no claim was brought by me at that time.”

NGN, which denies allegations of unlawful activity at The Sun, is bidding to stop the legal claims on the grounds that Harry and Mr Grant could have brought them years earlier.

“The central role these two claimants have occupied in the phone hacking scandal”, said Anthony Hudson KC, representing the media company. “They have both been front and centre.”

He said the Duke of Sussex had been “at the epicentre” of the scandal since 2006 when Goodman was jailed for hacking the phones of Royal staffers.

“So that’s 17 years that they have been deeply part of the phone hacking scandal, prosecutions, inquiries, the Leveson Inquiry, civil cases”, he said, urging Mr Justice Fancourt to end the claims for being brought too late.

The hearing at the High Court, which is due to last three days, continues.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
EU Set to Bar Big Tech from New Financial Data Access Scheme
China Bans Livestreaming and AI in Religion Amid Crackdown on Shaolin Temple Scandal
Documents Reveal Mandelson Failed to Declare Epstein-Funded Flights as MP in 2003
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Harris Memoir Sparks Backlash from Democrats for Blunt Critiques in ‘107 Days’
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Japan’s ‘Death-Tainted’ Homes Gain Appeal as Prices Soar in Tokyo
Massive Attack Withdraws from Spotify Over Daniel Ek’s €600M Defence-AI Investment
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders Third Lethal Strike on Drug-Trafficking Vessel as U.S. Expands Maritime Counter-Narcotics Operations
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
Why Google Search Is Fading and AI Is Taking Its Place
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Federal Judge Dismisses Trump’s Fifteen-Billion-Dollar Suit Against New York Times, Orders Refile
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
×