Prince Harry is suing Rupert Murdoch's British tabloids, saying they illegally obtained personal information about him for years. He blamed the media, particularly Murdoch's newspapers, for exacerbating the divisions between the royal family. Zhang Jian/Associated Press/Associated Press hide title
LONDON - Opening arguments are set to begin on Tuesday in the trial over complaints made by Prince Harry and a senior British lawmaker against Rupert Murdoch's London tabloid. It matters on both sides of the Atlantic.
Harry's complaint alleges that Murdoch's reporters and private investigators illegally obtained the prince's personal information for years. Harry blames much of his feud with the royal family and the royal family on the media, particularly the Murdoch press. Emotional struggles experienced by wivesMeghan Markle. He wins hacking case involving rival Mirror tabloid He also said he wanted to hold the Murdoch tabloids accountable not only for their invasion of his privacy, but for the privacy violations of many others over the years.
"I was the last person who was able to actually make this happen and bring closure to these 1,300 people and families." Harry recently told new york times. "I would be sad if these journalists were to ruin journalism for everyone, because we depend on journalism."
While other British newspaper groups have admitted similar misconduct, the Murdoch group stands alone.
News UK, Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper unit, has paid more than $1.5 billion to people who complained that the company illegally obtained private information, including voicemail messages, financial and health documents and other sensitive material.
The "1,300 people and families" the prince referred to were those who had been resettled; therefore, their claims escaped trial and public attention. Of the 40 complainants originally involved in the lawsuit, all but the prince and the MP have settled.
In addition to members of the royal family and prominent politicians, targets include famous actors, singers, sports stars, war dead and victims of crime and terrorism.
Many of the settlements involved Sunday tabloid newspapers, world news. In July 2011, Murdoch publicly apologized and shut down the paper after its reporters targeted the cellphone voicemail messages of a murdered schoolgirl. Several people, including the Sunday tabloid's former editor, were jailed for related crimes. The company also settled claims against Murdoch Daily News. sun tabloid, now published on Sundays. But the company never admitted any liability in settling those claims.
Rupert Murdoch (centre) speaks to the media after meeting the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in London on July 15, 2011. His tabloids hacked into Dowler's phone messages, angering the nation. Will Lewis, current CEO Washington Post, Located on the right, partially obscured by the microphone. Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP/AP hide title
The second complaint, made by Tom Watson, now a former member of the House of Lords, alleges that staff at Murdoch-owned newspapers hacked into Watson's mobile phone voicemails while Watson was serving on a parliamentary select committee investigating his newspaper potential illegal conduct. Activities from 2008 to 2012.
A trial involving complaints from Harry and Watson could have harsh consequences for Will Lewis' behavior. Will Lewis is a former Murdoch executive who is now the company's publisher and CEO. Washington Post. Lewis is accused of participating in a 14-year-old cover-up that included destroying millions of emails and concealing other evidence from police that company leaders knew of wrongdoing.
Former British cabinet minister Chris Huhne, who is also suing Murdoch's British newspaper company News UK, said: "This is about the power of people who are still very powerful and their of abuse of power and whether they could be held responsible for it" hacked into his private voicemail. He dropped the lawsuit in December 2023 after the company paid him a six-figure settlement and paid his legal fees.
The complaints were made against the tabloid arm of Murdoch's British newspapers unit. Neither Murdoch nor Lewis are defendants in the case. Lewis has denied any wrongdoing and declined to comment for this story.
The British news agency said through a spokesman that it "strongly denies" any illegal gathering of information about Watson and said it would vigorously defend itself against the charges against Harry, partly because they were brought years after the fact.
Separately, UK news agencies have denied claims that emails were destroyed.
"This allegation is false and untenable, and we will categorically deny it," the statement read.
The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks unless a settlement is reached.
The case represents the culmination and potential end of a rolling scandal that began a generation ago. Although The News UK long ago concluded that any wrongdoing was the fault of a few bad actors, new revelations since then have prompted multiple rounds of new lawsuits.
Murdoch, 93, is the founder of Fox News and the controlling owner of major newspapers in the English-speaking world, including Wall Street Journal, Times of London and new york post. Murdoch was able to extend his influence globally because of the success of his newspapers in London, especially his Sunday Times world news and daily sun Tabloids.
There were other legal setbacks. In 2023, Fox News paid $787.5 billion to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems for airing lies accusing President Biden of fraud in the 2020 presidential campaign. Fox faces a second trial later this year in a $2.7 billion lawsuit filed by another voting technology company, Smartmatic.
Neither Murdoch nor Lewis are expected to testify. But what the trial in London reveals, and how it is perceived by the public, could threaten Lewis' grip on the law. washington post after a rocky first year running the paper. Some members of his Washington newsroom have harshly criticized his leadership. hundreds postal Journalists signed a letter last week asking boss Jeff Bezos to mediate. (Via spokesperson Lewis and postal declined to comment. An aide to Bezos did not respond to a request for comment. )
The London case relates to the beginning of his work for Murdoch in the UK. Murdoch hired Lewis as an executive from a rival Telecom media group in 2010, and he quickly took on highly sensitive tasks. The media mogul assigned Lewis and a close friend of Lewis to work with Scotland Yard to investigate alleged criminal conduct at his tabloid. Several journalists and investigators have pleaded guilty to violations. murdoch's former editor world news Convicted of conspiracy to wiretap calls and jailed for nearly five months.
Watson's lawyers said the hacking of his phone did not result in the publication of any known newspaper articles, suggesting Watson was seeking information about a parliamentary inquiry.
Watson's legal team has accused Lewis of helping destroy evidence, lying to investigators and defaming Watson and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to justify withholding evidence. Watson is a leading critic of the Murdoch family in parliament.
Records filed in the lawsuit against News UK show police questioned Lewis and chief technology officer Paul Cheesbrough in July 2011 about millions of files deleted six months earlier. emails that the plaintiff suspected contained evidence of a crime.
When police asked why the emails were deleted, Lewis and Chisbrough said they were told Brown and Watson conspired to pay a former News UK staffer to gain access to its chief executive Rebecca Brooks' email. The two politicians deny any such conspiracy.
According to a police transcript of that meeting later revealed in court, Lewis said: "We were alerted by a source that a current member of staff had accessed Rebecca's emails and passed them on to Tom Watson "Then the source came back and said it was a former employee and the email must have been controlled by Gordon Brown. That added to our anxiety."
No evidence has been released to corroborate this claim.
Last summer, Brown formally called on Scotland Yard to launch a new criminal investigation into the UK News Agency allegations. He told NPR that Bezos should reconsider Lewis' suitability to lead the company. washington post. An elite investigative team has launched a preliminary review, but police have not yet announced whether it will expand into a full investigation.
Last week, more than 400 postal Reporters called on Bezos to visit the paper to address their leadership concerns, but they did not name Lewis. Earlier, many were outraged by reports that Lewis had pressured reporters — including their top editor at the time and the NPR correspondent — not to report on developments in the London lawsuit involving him.
After working at News UK, Lewis was promoted to a senior executive at Murdoch's News Corp. headquarters in New York. For six years, he served as publisher and chief executive of News Corp. Wall Street Journal. Cheesebrough, a former IT director at News UK, is now chief technology officer at Rupert Murdoch's Fox Corp. (He declined to comment through a Fox spokesman.) News UK chief executive Brooks edited both articles. world news and sun. She left the company at the height of the scandal but returned after she was acquitted of criminal charges involving the hackers.
Last year, the UK news agency pointed to its settlement agreement, past involvement in parliamentary and judicial inquiries and the Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to bring criminal charges against the company to support its argument that the company had acted in good faith to redress any past wrongdoing. . The company said it was now "drawing a line in the sand" to emphasize that it believed the chapter must be considered closed. The cases of Prince Harry and Watson (who now sits in the House of Lords as Sir Willem Watson) represent the last two claims.
Under British law, a plaintiff in a civil case may be forced to pay the defendant's legal costs if he rejects a settlement offer that exceeds the amount awarded at trial. The scale of losses tends to be much smaller than in the United States. Actor Hugh Grant alluded to these concerns when he accepted what the British press called a "significant amount of money" to resolve his case. He said otherwise he could face £10m in legal bills from the company.
As the trial begins, it's a risk Harry seems willing to take.