Mirror group

The litigation against MGN (now part of Reach plc) followed years of denials by the publisher. While the News of the World scandal was the primary focus of the Leveson Inquiry, the Mirror Group was later proved to have engaged in similar—and sometimes more prolonged—illegal practices. The 2023 trial was designed as a "test case" to resolve generic issues that would apply to hundreds of other pending claims.

Mr Justice Fancourt's 386-page judgment was a total vindication for those who alleged a "rotten corporate culture." He found that phone hacking began as early as 1996 and became a "primary journalistic tool" by 1998. Crucially, the judge ruled that these illegal activities continued even during the Leveson Inquiry in 2011, albeit in a more "controlled" manner to avoid detection.

The findings on corporate concealment were particularly damaging. The judge concluded that two directors of Trinity Mirror plc (the parent company at the time) knew about the illegal activity and "positively concealed it." He also found that the legal department was aware of the practices because they had to "legal" (vett) articles that they knew had been obtained through unlawful voicemail interception. High-profile editors, including Piers Morgan (who was editor of the Daily Mirror until 2004), were found by the judge to have known about or been involved in phone hacking—a claim Morgan continues to strenuously deny.

The legacy of the Mirror Group litigation is the setting of a "high bar" for corporate accountability in the UK media. While two of the four representative claimants had their cases dismissed because they were "out of time" (statute-barred), the judgment for Prince Harry opened the floodgates for further settlements, costing Reach plc tens of millions of pounds in legal fees and compensation.

The Gulati v MGN Limited (2015) judgment was the first major legal "earthquake" for the Mirror Group. While the 2023 Prince Harry case confirmed corporate concealment, Gulati was the case that finally blew the cover off the sheer scale of the hacking and established the astronomical costs MGN would face.

Before 2015, Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) had consistently maintained that phone hacking was a "News of the World problem" and did not happen at their titles. Gulati was the "test case" for damages involving eight high-profile victims, including actress Sadie Frost, footballer Paul Gascoigne, and BBC executive Alan Yentob.

The trial revealed a "rotten culture" where hacking was a routine news-gathering tool. Journalists and private investigators used "burner" phones to intercept voicemails, often "blagging" (impersonating) individuals to gain access codes. To avoid detection, hackers would regularly snap their SIM cards and throw the phones into the River Thames at Canary Wharf.

The judgment was revolutionary because of how Mr Justice Mann calculated the damages. MGN argued that victims should only be compensated for the distress caused by the articles. The judge rejected this, ruling that victims should also be compensated for the loss of autonomy—the mere fact that their private information had been "misappropriated" by the newspaper, regardless of whether it was published or caused them upset. This "atomised" approach—awarding a sum for every single time a phone was hacked—led to unprecedented payouts. For example, Sadie Frost was awarded £260,250 because she had been hacked almost daily for several years.

The Gulati ruling essentially "set the bar" for the thousands of claims that followed. It proved that MGN’s previous denials to the Leveson Inquiry were false and forced the company to set aside hundreds of millions of pounds for future settlements.