William 'Paid Large Sum' By Tabloid Over Hacking Case

Prince William was paid a very large sum of money” by Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper business to settle a phone-hacking claim, the High Court has heard. The Prince of Wales allegedly received the secret payment after bringing a case against News Group Newspapers NGN), the owners of The Sun and the now defunct News of the World.

- JOE MIDDLETON

Details of the settlement, which William allegedly received in 2020, were revealed yesterday in court documents submitted by William’s brother, Prince Harry, who is suing NGN over alleged unlawful information-gathering at its titles. David Sherborne, representing Harry, also disclosed that there had been an earlier “secret agreement”, approved by the Queen, that the royal family would not pursue claims against the publisher until the conclusion of a series of phone-hacking cases.

It was also revealed that Harry had felt that the tabloids “owned” him, and that he had attempted to block journalists from attending his wedding to Meghan Markle until he received an apology from NGN over phone-hacking.

In his witness statement, Harry, who did not find out about the deal until 2012, alleged that it was agreed that the royals would bring claims at the end of a series of cases about phone-hacking, which would be resolved without trial. He said that the royal family wanted to avoid any further public embarrassment following the earlier publication of a recording of a call, obtained by The Sun, between the then Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles while they were having an affair in 1989.

In relation to the secret agreement, the filing states: “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.

“This agreement, including the promises from NGN for delayed resolution was, obviously, a major factor as to why no claim was brought by me at that time.”