By Sheila Mckenzie-
Prince William was paid a “very large sum” by the owners of The Sun to settle historical phone-hacking claims, court papers from Prince Harry’s lawyers say.
The papers were shown at a High Court hearing in which Prince Harry is suing News Group Newspapers (NGN) over alleged unlawful information gathering.
They reveal that Buckingham Palace and NGN had a “secret agreement” to put off legal claims from Royal Family members.
The case is one of three major allegations of unlawful information gathering that the Duke of Sussex has made against tabloid newspapers – the other cases concerning the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail groups.
Prince Harry alleges that evidence disclosed since the criminal trials relating to phone hacking at the now-closed News of the World prove he was serially targeted by its sister title, The Sun.
He also accuses its journalists and private investigators working for them of obtaining private and confidential information from when he was 11 or 12 years old – including details on his personal life and movements.
The Prince of Wales received the previously undisclosed payment in 2020 after bringing a legal claim against the owner of the Sun and the News of the World.
Details of the settlement were given in legal documents submitted by his brother, Prince Harry, as part of his own legal battle with the publisher, which returns to the high court on Tuesday.
Harry told the court his attempts to seek an apology from Murdoch’s company over phone hacking were carried out with the approval of his grandmother the late Queen Elizabeth II.
The royal claims there was a secret agreement struck between royal family and “senior executives” at Murdoch’s company at some point before 2012. As part of this supposed deal the princes would delay legal proceedings against the newspaper group in return for receiving an apology at a later date.
Harry said the royal family did this after being scarred by the “Tampongate” incident when the Sun obtained a recorded phone call between Prince Charles and Camilla while the couple were having an affair in the 1980s.
Harry said the royal family was desperate to avoid a repeat of this coverage. The filings state: “The reason for this was to avoid the situation where a member of the royal family would have to sit in the witness box and recount the specific details of the private and highly sensitive voicemails that had been intercepted by [the News of the World royal reporter] Clive Goodman.
“The institution was incredibly nervous about this and wanted to avoid at all costs the sort of reputational damage that it had suffered in 1993 when the Sun and another tabloid had unlawfully obtained and published details of an intimate telephone conversation that took place between my father and stepmother in 1989, while he was still married to my mother.”
Harry alleges that News UK failed to uphold its side of the secret agreement when he sought this apology in 2017. He claims meetings were arranged involving Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of Murdoch’s News UK, and Robert Thomson, the global head of Murdoch’s global News Corp business, but they went nowhere.
Harry then decided to launch legal proceedings against the publisher of the Sun and the News of the World. He alleges the company targeted him with widespread illegal activity for much of his life, including hacking his voicemails and illegally obtaining personal information in the name of journalism. Many of Harry’s allegations relate to claims of illegal behaviour at the Sun while Brooks was editor in the 2000s. News Group Newspapers insisted there is no secret agreement.
Although News UK has admitted phone hacking took place at the News of the World, it has always maintained no wrongdoing took place at the Sun. Brooks was found not guilty of phone hacking at a criminal trial in 2014.
A spokesperson said “the Sun does not accept liability or make any admissions to the allegations”, emphasising that many of Harry’s claims dated back 20 years.
A separate trial against the publisher of the Mirror and Sunday Mirror is due to start in a fortnight, with Harry set to break with royal protocol by giving evidence in the witness box.
If Harry is successful in this week’s hearing against Murdoch’s company then he is seeking damages in excess of £200,000, with a high-profile trial scheduled for January 2024.
The royal’s lawyers told the court News UK had engaged in “years of deliberate concealment, destruction of evidence, cover-up at the highest level and false denials even given under oath”.
They said: “The invasion of his personal conversations and relationships caused distress, as his privacy was constantly violated and his safety jeopardised. [Prince Harry] is appalled by the tactics used by journalists to interfere with and ruin his relationships, and feels sick knowing that these actions were conducted unlawfully.”
His lawyers said Harry was bringing the case because “crime should not be allowed to pay”
However, according to the documents, the newspaper’s owners struck a private agreement with officials at Buckingham Palace to put off legal claims from members of the Royal Family.
That alleged agreement, which has not been disclosed in court, had delayed Prince Harry from bringing his own case, his lawyers say.