LONDON — Opening arguments are set to start Tuesday in a trial over complaints filed by Prince Harry and a senior British lawmaker against Rupert Murdoch's London tabloid newspapers. It carries high stakes on both sides of the Atlantic.
Harry's claim alleges that Murdoch's journalists and private investigators unlawfully gained access to the prince's personal information for years. Harry has blamed the media, and particularly the Murdoch press, in significant part for the rift he has experienced with the royal family and the , Meghan Markle. and says he wants to hold the Murdoch tabloids accountable too, not just for invading his privacy but that of many other people over the years.
"I'm the last person who can actually achieve that, and also closure for these 1,300 people and families," . "I will be damned if those journalists are going to ruin journalism for everyone, because we depend on it."
While other British newspaper groups have acknowledged similar wrongdoing, the Murdoch stable stands in a class of its own.
°µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK, the Murdoch British newspaper division that includes his tabloids, has paid in excess of $1.5 billion to people who filed complaints against the company for unlawfully obtaining private information, including voice mail messages, financial and health documents, and other sensitive material.
The prince's reference to "1,300 people and families" is to the people who have received settlements; as a result their claims were therefore kept out of a trial and public view. Of the 40 complainants that were initially part of this litigation, all but the prince and the lawmaker have settled.
Beyond members of the royal family and prominent politicians, those targeted included famous actors, singers, sports stars, war dead and the victims of crime and terrorism.
Many of the settlements involved the Sunday tabloid, °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ of the World. Murdoch publicly apologized and shut the paper down in July 2011 after it was revealed its journalists had targeted the mobile voice mail messages of a slain schoolgirl. Several people, including a former editor of that Sunday tabloid, served jail time for related offenses. The company has also made settlements involving claims against Murdoch's daily Sun tabloid, which now publishes on Sunday. But the company has never acknowledged any liability in settling those claims.
A claim from a lawmaker who investigated Murdoch's tabloids
The second complaint, filed by former Member of Parliament Tom Watson who is now in the House of Lords, alleges that people working for Murdoch's newspapers hacked into Watson's mobile phone voice messages as he was serving on a Parliamentary select committee investigating their papers' potentially illegal activities from 2008 to 2012.
The trial involving Harry and Watson's complaints could shine a harsh light on the behavior of Will Lewis, a former top Murdoch executive who is now the publisher and CEO of The Washington Post. Lewis stands accused of participating in a cover-up 14 years ago that included the destruction of millions of emails and the withholding from police of other evidence that company leaders knew about the wrongdoing.
"This is about the power of people who are still very powerful and their abuses — and whether they are held to account for it," says Chris Huhne, a former British Cabinet minister who also sued Murdoch's British newspaper company, °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK, claiming it hacked into his private voice messages. In December 2023, he dropped the suit after the company paid him a six-figure settlement and covered his legal costs.
The complaints were filed against the tabloid division of Murdoch's British newspaper arm; Neither Murdoch nor Lewis is a defendant in the case. Lewis, who has denied all wrongdoing, declined to comment for this story.
Through a spokesperson, °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK said it "strongly denies" any unlawful gathering of information about Watson and said it would fully defend itself against Harry's allegations as well, in part by arguing they are making their case too many years after the fact.
In addition, °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK rejected the claim of destroying emails.
"This allegation is wrong, unsustainable, and will be strongly denied," the statement read.
The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks unless a settlement is reached.
A series of trials against Murdoch news outlets
The case represents the apex and potential conclusion of a rolling scandal that began a generation ago. While °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK has held that any wrongdoing was the fault of a few bad actors long ago, new revelations since have sparked rounds of fresh litigation.
The 93-year-old Murdoch is the founder of Fox °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ and controlling owner of major papers throughout the English speaking world, including the Wall Street Journal, the Times of London and the New York Post. Murdoch was able to extend his reach globally because of the success of his London papers, especially his Sunday °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ of the World and daily Sun tabloid.
There have been other legal setbacks. In 2023, Fox °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ paid $787.5 billion to settle a defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over lies it aired alleging fraud in the 2020 presidential race to give victory to President Biden. Fox faces a second trial later this year in a $2.7 billion suit filed by another voting tech company, Smartmatic.
Neither Murdoch nor Lewis are expected to testify. But what this trial in London reveals and what the public makes of it, could threaten Lewis's control over the Washington Post after his rocky first year running the paper. Some members of his own newsroom in Washington have sharply criticized his leadership. Hundreds of Post journalists last week signed a letter asking owner Jeff Bezos to intercede. (Through a spokesperson, Lewis and the Post declined to comment. An aide to Bezos did not respond to a request for comment.)
The London cases involve the beginning of his time working for Murdoch in the U.K. Murdoch hired Lewis away from the rival Telegraph Media Group as an executive in 2010 and he soon took on highly sensitive tasks. The media baron assigned Lewis and one of Lewis's close friends to cooperate with Scotland Yard in its investigation of alleged criminality at his tabloids. Several journalists and investigators pleaded guilty to breaking the law. A former editor of Murdoch's °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ of the World was convicted of a conspiracy to hack phones and served nearly five months in prison.
Watson's lawyers say the hacking of his phone led to no known newspaper article, suggesting it was in pursuit of information about the parliamentary investigation.
Lewis tells police a former prime minister may have targeted °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK's CEO
Lewis stands accused by Watson's legal team of helping to destroy evidence, lying to investigators and smearing Watson and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to justify withholding evidence. Watson had been a leading critic of the Murdochs in Parliament.
Records submitted in lawsuits against °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK show that police questioned Lewis and chief tech officer Paul Cheesbrough in July 2011 about the deletion six months earlier of millions of emails, which plaintiffs suspected held evidence of the crimes.
When police asked why the emails were deleted, Lewis and Cheesbrough said they had been told that Brown and Watson had plotted to pay a former °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK staffer to acquire the emails of its chief executive, Rebekah Brooks. The two politicians have denied any such plot.
"We got a warning from a source that a current member of staff had got access to Rebekah's emails and had passed them to Tom WATSON," Lewis said, according to police notes of that meeting later revealed in court. "Then the source came back and said it was a former member of staff and the emails had definitely been passed and that it was controlled by Gordon BROWN. This added to our anxieties."
No evidence substantiating that claim has yet been made public.
Lewis under pressure
Last summer, Brown formally called for Scotland Yard to open a fresh criminal investigation of °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK over the allegation. He told NPR that whether Lewis is fit to lead the Washington Post. An elite unit of investigators has opened a preliminary review but the police have not announced whether they will broaden it into a full investigation.
Last week, more than called for Bezos to visit the paper to address their concerns over leadership, though they did not name Lewis. Many had earlier been angered by revelations that Lewis had pressured journalists — including their own top editor at the time and this NPR reporter — not to cover developments in the London lawsuits that involved him.
After working for °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK, Lewis was promoted to work as a senior executive at Murdoch's New York City headquarters of °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ Corp. For six years, he served as publisher and chief executive of the Wall Street Journal. Cheesbrough, the former IT executive at °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK, is now chief technology officer for Murdoch's Fox Corp. (He declined comment through a Fox Corp. spokesperson.) Brooks, the °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK chief, had edited both the °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ of the World and the Sun. She left the company at the height of the scandal but returned after she was acquitted of criminal charges involving hacking.
Last year, °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK pointed to its settlements, its involvement in past Parliamentary and judicial inquiries and the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to press criminal charges against the company to support its contention that it has acted in good faith to remedy any past wrongdoing. The company has said it is now "drawing a line" to underscore that it believes this chapter must be considered closed. The cases from Prince Harry and Watson, now serving in the House of Lords as Baron Watson of Wyre Forest, represent the final two claims.
Under British law, a plaintiff suing in a civil case can be forced to pay the defendant's legal costs if he or she turns down a settlement offer that exceeds the amount of the judgment awarded at trial. The size of damages are often far lower than in the U.S. The actor Hugh Grant cited those fears in accepting what he called an "enormous sum of money" from °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ UK to settle his case. He said he could otherwise have faced a 10 million pound bill for the company's legal fees.
With the start of the trial, Harry appears to be willing to take on that risk.
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