AMAZING! Prince Harry and News Group Newspapers have reached a settlement. The trial was supposed to start yesterday, but the Murdoch family made a “massive” settlement offer to Harry at the very last minute, because they were terrified of all of the sh-t that was about to come out in the trial. Years and years of criminality, illegal hacking, blagging and coordination with various royal courts. Not only has Harry accepted a reported eight-figure settlement, but NGN publicly apologized to Harry and Tom Watson.

Prince Harry settled his privacy claim against Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper group on Wednesday after the publisher admitted unlawful actions at its Sun tabloid for the first time, bringing the fiercely-contested legal battle to a dramatic end.

In a stunning victory for Harry, 40, the younger son of King Charles, News Group Newspapers (NGN), publisher of The Sun and the now-defunct News of the World, also admitted it had intruded into the private life of his late mother, Princess Diana.

Harry’s lawyer, David Sherborne, said the publisher had agreed to pay the prince substantial damages. A source familiar with the settlement said it involved an eight-figure sum.

Harry had been suing NGN at the High Court in London, accusing its newspapers of unlawfully obtaining private information about him from 1996 until 2011. The trial to consider the royal’s case, and a similar lawsuit from former senior British lawmaker Tom Watson, was due to start on Tuesday but following last-gasp talks, the two sides reached a settlement, with NGN saying there had been wrongdoing at The Sun, something it had denied for years.

“NGN offers a full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the serious intrusion by The Sun between 1996 and 2011 into his private life, including incidents of unlawful activities carried out by private investigators working for The Sun,” Sherborne said. “NGN further apologises to the Duke for the impact on him of the extensive coverage and serious intrusion into his private life as well as the private life of Diana, Princess of Wales, his late mother, in particular during his younger years.”

NGN has paid out hundreds of millions of pounds to victims of phone-hacking and other unlawful information gathering by the News of the World, and settled more than 1,300 lawsuits involving celebrities, politicians, well-known sports figures and ordinary people who were connected to them or major events. But it had always rejected any claims that there was wrongdoing at The Sun newspaper, or that any senior figures knew about it or tried to cover it up, as Harry’s lawsuit alleges.

[From Reuters]

There were several big moments in this case where Harry really had their cojones in a vice – the fact that the court never bought NGN’s argument that Harry was bringing this case too late, the fact that the judge allowed Harry to have access to communications between NGN and the palace. It all worked in Harry’s favor, and NGN was running scared. My guess is that the “settlement talks” were less about the money and more about the wording of the apology. Harry not only got an acknowledge of wrongdoing and an apology, he got them on the record about what they did to his mother.

I’m certain there will be people nitpicking Harry’s decision, but this man has fought the most powerful media outlets in Britain for years, and he’s more than earned his right to walk away, especially because this is an unqualified victory across the board. He got the admissions he wanted, he got the apology he wanted, he got some justice for his late mother, and he got a huge f–king check. It also speaks to just how dangerous this lawsuit was for NGN, the Murdochs and Will Lewis, the current CEO of the Washington Post. Speaking of, here’s a statement on behalf of Prince Harry & Tom Watson (they were the only two plaintiffs left on this case):

In a monumental victory today, News UK have admitted that The Sun, the flagship title for Rupert Murdoch’s UK media empire, has indeed engaged in illegal practices. This represents a vindication for the hundreds of other claimants who were strong-armed into settling, without being able to get to the truth of what was done to them.

After endless resistance, denials and legal battles by News Group Newspapers, including spending more than a billion pounds in payouts and in legal costs (as well as paying-off those in the know) to prevent the full picture from coming out, News UK is finally held to account for its illegal actions and its blatant disregard for the law. It has also specifically admitted wrongdoing against Tom Watson, and admitted unlawful acts by The Sun, as well as by the News of the World, against Prince Harry.

The truth that has now been exposed is that NGN unlawfully engaged more than 100 private investigators over at least 16 years on more than 35,000 occasions. This happened as much at The Sun as it did at the News of the World, with the knowledge of all the Editors and executives, going to the very top of the company.

What’s even worse is that in the wake of the 2006 arrest of a Royal correspondent, there was an extensive conspiracy to cover up what really had been going on and who knew about it. Senior executives deliberately obstructed justice by deleting over 30 million emails, destroying back-up tapes, and making false denials – all in the face of an on-going police investigation. They then repeatedly lied under oath to cover their tracks – both in Court and at the Leveson Public Inquiry.

At her trial, in 2014 Rebekah Brooks, said “when I was Editor of The Sun we ran a clean ship”. Now, 10 years later when she is CEO of the company, they now admit, when she was Editor of The Sun, they ran a criminal enterprise.

Far from being relics of a distant past, many of those behind these unlawful practices remain firmly entrenched in senior positions today, both within News UK and other media outlets across the world, wielding editorial power and perpetuating the toxic culture in which they continue to thrive. It’s perhaps no surprise that all of their senior executives and editors refused to turn up to court to give evidence. The failure of each of these key individuals to come and answer questions under oath spoke volumes in itself, but their collective silence is deafening.

Today’s result has been achieved only through the sheer resilience of Prince Harry and Lord Watson, whose willingness to take NGN to trial has led directly to this historic admission of unlawfulness at The Sun. It has only been by taking NGN – not just to the steps of court but inside the court room itself – that these Claimants have finally managed to extract this historic admission of guilt.

As a direct result of him taking a stand, Prince Harry and his immediate family have also had to repeatedly withstand aggressive and vengeful coverage since starting his claim over five years ago. This has created serious concerns for the security of him and his family.

The rule of law must now run its full course. Prince Harry & Tom Watson join others in calling for the police and Parliament to investigate not only the unlawful activity now finally admitted, but the perjury and cover ups along the way. It’s clear now this has occurred throughout this process, including through sworn evidence in inquiries and court hearings, and in testimony to Parliament, until today’s final collapse of NGN’s defence.

Today the lies are laid bare. Today, the cover-ups are exposed. And today proves that no one stands above the law. The time for accountability has arrived.

This part is important – “Prince Harry & Tom Watson join others in calling for the police and Parliament to investigate not only the unlawful activity now finally admitted, but the perjury and cover ups along the way.” This is something at the heart of Harry’s lawsuit too, the idea that it shouldn’t be up to Harry and private citizens to sue their way to justice after the police and lawmakers abdicated their responsibility to keep these criminal enterprises in check.

Full apology statement from Murdoch admitting unlawful activity by Sun against Prince Harry and by News of the World against former MP Tom Watson

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— David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) January 22, 2025

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.