Prince Harry was awarded US$179,720 in a phone hacking lawsuit against newspaper group MGN, marking a victory for the royal, who has consistently refused to settle long-standing claims.

Unlawful information gathering was “widespread and habitual” between 2006 and 2011 including to some extent during the Leveson Inquiry into improper press conduct, Judge Timothy Fancourt said in London on Friday (Dec 15).

The prince sued the publishers of the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and The Sunday People at London’s High Court over claims of unlawful information gathering activities by journalists. The allegations, which date back as far as 1991 and continued to at least 2011, included phone hacking, the use of unlawful blagging of information and private investigators to break stories. 

“Phone hacking remained an important tool of the kind of journalism that was being practiced,” Fancourt said. He also found that private investigators were used to collect information unlawfully and that the then chief executive officer, Sylvia Bailey, knew it was happening by the end of 2011.

Lawyers for MGN, now owned by Reach, argued that the claims were long out of date and that the claimants, which included three other high-profile individuals, should have been filed years ago. The group was involved in a high-profile trial in 2015 where damages were paid and the paper admitted liability.

“Where historical wrongdoing took place, we apologise unreservedly, have taken full responsibility and paid appropriate compensation,” an MGN spokesperson said. 

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The judge said that 15 out of 33 articles presented in Prince Harry’s case were a product of phone hacking or other unlawful information gathering. He said he was only hacked to a “modest extent” between 2003-2009 and it was carefully controlled.

The royal was the first prominent figure in the British monarchy to appear in a London court in June since Queen Victoria’s son who would later become King Edward VII in the 1890s. During his testimony, he recounted how the articles played a disruptive role in his life and that senior management at the newspapers turned a blind eye to the pervasive behaviour. BLOOMBERG