In 2020 the legal costs were 80 million pounds and, in 2022, 51 million. That has wiped out any chance of the paper making a profit. Ironically, because the News of the World was killed off because of the repugnance of the hacking scandal, it is The Sun that bears the costs of the settlements. She is not involved and it is being entirely handled and directed by senior lawyers and external counsel.” Is it right for a company and its shareholders to allow someone with a conflict of interest to decide how a case is run?”Ī spokesperson for NGN said: “It is not the case that Ms Brooks is directing the legal strategy. It’s unusual for a company to have someone with an interest having a role in deciding the legal strategy. The person familiar with Harry’s case claims that lawyers have now discovered considerable evidence that hacking did continue at The Sun under Brooks and says “She’s exposed and what’s strange is that she’s running this litigation. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday. Royalist is The Daily Beast’s newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. At the Old Bailey, Brooks and her defense team persuaded the jury that phone hacking had never attracted her attention, even though she and Coulson had been lovers for six years. Coulson had edited the paper from 2003 to 2007.īrooks, who had been on trial for a more serious charge, a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, was found not guilty and set free.īut Prince Harry-and other litigants-claim that hacking was widespread at The Sun during Brooks’s editorship. The criminal case for hacking brought against the News of the World in 2013 at Britain’s most storied criminal court, the Old Bailey, resulted in the jailing of its editor, Andy Coulson, for 18 months. Brooks edited the News of the World from 2000 to 2003, and The Sun from 2003 to 2009. NGN have always contended that hacking and illicit blagging of personal material was limited to the now-defunct Sunday tabloid the News of the World, and did not include the top-selling daily The Sun.

One specific personal target picked out by Harry is Rebekah Brooks, Murdoch’s top newspaper executive in the U.K. “News Group Newspapers (NGN) cannot allow some of those documents to see the light of day” a person familiar with the case told the Daily Beast. How Rupert Murdoch’s Final Grasp for Power Failed So Spectacularly Harry’s refusal to settle out of court-as thousands of other hacking victims have done because they lack his kind of wealth to support protracted litigation-means that damning documents uncovered during discovery would suddenly be made public in court.

Moreover, Harry’s attack on the “grotesque and sadistic” London tabloids is likely to bring more reputational harm.

The black prince murdoch