Russells’ Clients Win Phone Hacking Claims Including Landmark Damages Award
At a Hearing yesterday afternoon in the High Court in London we achieved notable successes in the ongoing phone hacking litigation for three of our clients. A landmark damages was made.
First the Court heard that Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) had been ordered to pay “substantial sum” in damages to Patsy Kensit. The claim spanned twelve years of Patsy’s life and in that time 65 articles were published, which aroused her suspicions.
Callum Galbraith in our reputation management team told the Court that MGN now accepted that its “actions were wrong and [had] caused unnecessary distress and tension for [Ms Kensit] at already difficult times [and it also] published stories which disclosed information regarding happier moments in [her] life”. The Court heard that Patsy Kensit believed that “her private and family life would have taken a very different course had MGN not treated her legal rights with such distain”. MGN apologised for its actions which it accepted had caused Ms Kensit “significant distress” and has paid her substantial damages.
The Court also heard that the actress and singer, Lisa Moorish, who had sought “to avoid the media glare for herself and her family”, suffered because MGN intercepted her voicemails and unlawfully obtained her private information. MGN agreed to pay substantial damages to Lisa and confirmed that it had used the information it had unlawfully obtained to publish stories about her which “deprived [her] of the opportunity to inform her family of information concerning her private and family life herself”. It was said that MGN’s actions led to “considerable distrust” within Lisa’s friendship group. She also received substantial damages.
Lastly we informed Mr Justice Mann that MGN had apologised to the former manager of Dannii Minogue and Girls Aloud, Hillary Shaw, and it has been ordered to pay her damages. MGN offered its “sincere apologies for the distress and anguish caused” having accepted that the publication of unlawfully obtained private information had “led to suspicion and recrimination [at the time] and imposed a strain upon [Ms Shaw’s relationships with her clients which were necessarily] based upon trust and confidence”.
These decisions were widely reported yesterday and we are pleased that we have to be able to achieve these results for our clients.
Reports of the hearing can be found at: –
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/25/mirror-group-agrees-pay-hefty-bill-damages-phone-hacking/
http://news.sky.com/story/amp/mirror-group-settles-dozens-of-celebrity-phone-hacking-claims-10850906
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/39710121
Steven Tregear and Callum Galbraith from Russells’ reputation management team were instructed on these claims and the team continues to be active in the pursuit of numerous other phone hacking claims against both MGN and News Group Newspapers, publishers of The Sun and the now defunct News of the World.