The Prince Harry-murdoch Trial: Opening Arguments Against Murdoch’s Journalists and a Managing Member of the London Tabloid Press
LONDON — Opening arguments are set to start Tuesday in a trial over complaints filed by Prince Harry and a senior British lawmaker against Rupert Murdoch’s London tabloid newspapers. It carries high stakes on both sides of the Atlantic.
Harry’s claim alleges that Murdoch’s journalists and private investigators unlawfully gained access to the prince’s personal information for years. Harry has blamed the media, and particularly the Murdoch press, in significant part for the rift he has experienced with the royal family and the emotional struggles experienced by his wife, Meghan Markle. He prevailed in a hacking case involving the rival Mirror tabloid and says he wants to hold the Murdoch tabloids accountable too, not just for invading his privacy but that of many other people over the years.
“I’m the last person who can actually achieve that, and also closure for these 1,300 people and families,” Harry recently told The New York Times. “I will be damned if those journalists are going to ruin journalism for everyone, because we depend on it.”
News UK, the Murdoch British newspaper division that includes his tabloids, has paid in excess of $1.5 billion to people who filed complaints against the company for unlawfully obtaining private information, including voice mail messages, financial and health documents, and other sensitive material.
The prince’s reference to “1,300 people and families” is to the people who have received settlements; as a result their claims were therefore kept out of a trial and public view. Of the 40 complainants that were initially part of this litigation, all but the prince and the lawmaker have settled.
Beyond members of the royal family and prominent politicians, those targeted included famous actors, singers, sports stars, war dead and the victims of crime and terrorism.
News UK’s James Murdoch is defending itself against allegations of hacking into his voice mail messages, a step toward the conclusion of a rolling scandal
He was able to largely cover up the damage and prevent the public’s exposure to his other titles. News UK did not deny hacking into the voice mail messages, but said that the legal claims were too late to be meaningful. Executives did not conduct a coverup, it has strenuously denied.
Among the executives allegedly involved in that coverup is Will Lewis, now the CEO and publisher of the Washington Post. 14 years ago, a Murdoch executive, named Lewis, was in charge of Murdoch’s newspapers in the U.K. He is not a defendant in the case, and has denied all wrongdoing. The claims against Lewis and the other executives have not been tested in court.
Chris Huhne, a former British Cabinet minister who sued Murdoch’s News UK for hacking into his voice messages, says the case is about the power of people and whether they are held to account for their abuses. He dropped the suit after the company paid him six figures and covered his legal costs.
Through a spokesperson, News UK said it “strongly denies” any unlawful gathering of information about Watson and said it would fully defend itself against Harry’s allegations as well, in part by arguing they are making their case too many years after the fact.
The case represents the apex and potential conclusion of a rolling scandal that began a generation ago. News UK still holds that any wrongdoing was the responsibility of a few bad actors, even though new revelations have sparked new litigation.
The 93-year-old Murdoch is the founder of Fox News and controlling owner of major papers throughout the English speaking world, including the Wall Street Journal, the Times of London and the New York Post. Murdoch was able to extend his reach globally because of the success of his London papers, especially his Sunday News of the World and daily Sun tabloid.
There have been other challenges in the courts. Fox News paid nearly one billion dollars to settle a defamation suit in order to win the 2020 election and defeat President Biden. Fox is being sued for over two billion dollars by another voting tech company, Smartmatic.
Murdoch’s investigation of the London lawsuits against the Times-News publisher and the Telegraph Media Group – a source close to the top editor
The London cases involve the beginning of his time working for Murdoch in the U.K. Murdoch hired Lewis away from the rival Telegraph Media Group as an executive in 2010 and he soon took on highly sensitive tasks. The media baron assigned Lewis and one of Lewis’s close friends to cooperate with Scotland Yard in its investigation of alleged criminality at his tabloids. Several journalists and investigators pleaded guilty to breaking the law. A former editor of Murdoch’s News of the World was convicted of a conspiracy to hack phones and served nearly five months in prison.
The police were told that when they asked why the email were deleted, they were told that Brown andWatson had plotted to get the email of RebekahBrooks, the CEO of News UK. The two politicians denied the plot was going to happen.
According to police notes of the meeting, Lewis said that a member of staff had gotten access to Re Bekah’s emails and passed them on to Tom Watkins. “Then the source came back and said it was a former member of staff and the emails had definitely been passed and that it was controlled by Gordon BROWN. This added to our anxieties.”
Last week, more than 400 Post journalists called for Bezos to visit the paper to address their concerns over leadership, though they did not name Lewis. The NPR reporter’s boss and their own top editor were angered by the revelations that Lewis had pressured them not to cover the London lawsuits.
News Corp. Offers Prince Harry Settlement to resolve years-long lawsuit against Murdoch’s newspaper, The Sun, or News UK, in a trial in England and Wales
Under British law, a plaintiff suing in a civil case can be forced to pay the defendant’s legal costs if he or she turns down a settlement offer that exceeds the amount of the judgment awarded at trial. The damages in the US are larger than in other countries. The actor Hugh Grant cited those fears in accepting what he called an “enormous sum of money” from News UK to settle his case. He said he could otherwise have faced a 10 million pound bill for the company’s legal fees.
NPR was the first to break the news of the offer, disclosed by a person who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the case directly. A spokesperson for News UK, Murdoch’s British newspaper company, declined comment, as did a lawyer for Harry and the lawmaker, former member of the House of Commons Tom Watson.
The presiding judge, Justice Timothy Fancourt, pressured the parties to decide on the offer Tuesday, saying he expected the trial to begin that afternoon. One of Murdoch’s attorneys wanted to be heard in closed chambers so he could make his case in public.
News UK never admitted fault in the past for criminal activity by The Sun. Murdoch moved the paper to seven days a week in 2012 after closing News of the World the year before.
Lewis and the Post were not able to comment. An aide to Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos did not respond to a request for comment.
Rebekah Brooks was the former editor of The Sun and News of the World. She had been the chief executive of News UK in 2011, but resigned that summer. Brooks was later acquitted in a criminal case on phone hacking related charges and returned to oversee Murdoch’s newspaper arm here.
The public presentation of evidence was meant to prove that Murdoch’s daily tabloid the Sun also engaged in widespread criminality in its reporting methods.
Brown and Watson have denied any such plot; News UK has not to date produced any evidence publicly to support its existence. Brown demanded a criminal investigation from Scotland Yard, which opened a preliminary review to determine whether a full investigation is needed.
Source: Murdoch’s News Corp offers Prince Harry settlement to resolve years-long lawsuit
Murdoch’s tabloid empire: a long-term settlement against a single-party investigation into a publication ad alias Murdoch
LONDON — Rupert Murdoch’s British publishing arm has made a substantial settlement offer to Prince Harry and a senior lawmaker to avoid a lengthy trial over whether company executives had engaged in a coverup of illegal actions at his tabloids here.