Prince Harry's lawyers seek $2.5 million in fees after win in British tabloid phone hacking case
ABC News
A lawyer for Prince Harry is seeking 2 million pounds ($2.5 million) in legal fees after proving the publisher of the Daily Mirror tabloid invaded his privacy by hacking his phone
LONDON -- A lawyer for Prince Harry asked a judge Monday to order the publisher of the Daily Mirror tabloid to pay nearly 2 million pounds ($2.5 million) for a portion of the legal fees spent to prove that Mirror Group Newspapers invaded his privacy by hacking his phone and using unlawful means to dig up scoops on him.
The Duke of Sussex was awarded 140,000 pounds ($178,000) in damages last month after the judge found that phone hacking was “widespread and habitual” at Mirror newspapers and executives at the papers covered it up.
The award was only a fraction of the sum he sought, but represented a major victory in his legal crusade against the British media. It is only one of several cases he has pending against tabloid publishers as he bucked his family’s longstanding aversion to litigation and in June became the first senior member of the royal family to testify in court in over a century.
Harry, 39, the alienated younger son of King Charles III, is likely to return to court in the coming year in similar trials against the publishers of The Sun and Daily Mail over allegations of unlawful snooping. He recently dropped a libel case against the Mail publisher after an unfavorable pretrial ruling.
The hearing Monday was over legal fees for a trial that involved Harry as one of four claimants, including two members of Britain’s longest-running TV soap opera, “Coronation Street,” who accused Mirror of hacking their phones and hiring private investigators to unlawfully gather information about their lives.
