Judgment in Mirror phone hacking trial

Judgment has been handed down today in several claims for phone hacking and related unlawful information gathering against MGN Ltd, the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People newspapers.

Four representative cases have been decided by Mr Justice Fancourt, being the claims brought by the Duke of Sussex, Nikki Sanderson, Fiona Wightman and Michael Turner. Two of the claimants have been awarded damages while two of the claims have been dismissed.

The Judge also made a series of generic findings:

• Outside of the period determined by the 2015 Gulati judgment (1999 to 2006), the Judge held that there was evidence of unlawful information gathering by MGN between 1995 and 1999, with extensive phone hacking continuing, on a reducing basis, from 2006 to 2011.
• 11 private investigators were used extensively by MGN for unlawful information gathering and were an integral part of this operation; the allegations of the unlawful use of a number of other private investigators were dismissed.
• As to knowledge, the Judge found that MGN’s parent company’s board as a whole did not know about phone hacking or the extent of unlawful information gathering, as the Claimants had alleged, but that one board member knew of voicemail interception from late 2003 and another turned a blind eye from the end of 2006. The Judge held that the unlawful information gathering should have been investigated in 2006-2007, but was instead concealed from the Board, the public, Leveson and Parliament.

The Duke of Sussex was awarded £140,600 in general and aggravated damages. It was found that 15 of the 33 sample articles complained of in his case were the product of phone hacking or other unlawful information-gathering. Liability was also found for 11 of 61 alleged ‘episodes’ of unlawful information gathering.

Michael Turner was successful in respect of 4 of the 27 articles he complained of, and 2 of the 4 alleged episodes. He was awarded £31,650 in general and aggravated damages.

The claims brought by Nikki Sanderson and Fiona Wightman, which were test claims on the issue of limitation, were both dismissed as being out of time. If these claimants had acted with reasonable diligence, they would have had the requisite knowledge to bring a possible claim by the end of October 2014, and they were therefore unable to rely on s.32 of the Limitation Act 1980.

Consequential matters, including costs and any application for permission to appeal, have been adjourned until a hearing in January.

5RB’s David Sherborne and Julian Santos appeared for the Claimants, instructed by Thomson Heath & Associates as lead solicitors and Clintons, Charles Russell Speechlys and Taylor Hampton for the individual Claimants. 5RB’s Richard Munden (led by Andrew Green KC of Blackstone Chambers) appeared for the Defendant, instructed by RPC.

The full judgment is available here.