A British A-list actor has reacted to Prince Harry’ settlement trial (Image: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
British actor Hugh Grant has spoken out and called for a new criminal investigation after
The Duke of Sussex had received an “unequivocal apology” from NGN after “serious intrusion” by outlet The Sun, including unlawful activities by private investigators working for the paper.
Last year, the High Court heard Hugh Grant settled his case against NGN because of a risk of a big legal bill if his case did go to trial.
The actor told : “Well, obviously, in light of these findings, we think that the CPS and the police should launch a new criminal investigation into this.
“And that was, as I say, the aim of ‘s case, as I understand it, and certainly was my original aim in my case. And also, quite clearly now there should be .”
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Hugh Grant commented on Prince Harry’s High Court case (Image: Gerald Matzka/Getty Images)
The British actor added: “This is something that was repeatedly promised by the in opposition to victims of press abuse over and over again, and now it suddenly seems to have disappeared from their priority list now that they’re in Government.”
On January 22, Harry settled his case after he alleged he was targeted by journalists and private investigators working for News Group Newspapers (NGN). NGN, which also ran the now-defunct News Of The World, had denied any unlawful activity took place at The Sun.
Harry’s barrister David Sherborne said NGN had spent “more than a billion pounds in payouts and in legal costs” in order to “prevent the full picture from coming out” and hailed the outcome as a “monumental victory”.
On Wednesday, NGN offered its “full and unequivocal apology” to the duke for the “serious intrusion” by The Sun between 1996 and 2011 and for the “phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information” by journalists and private investigators instructed by them at the News Of The World.
Chris Ship, Royal Editor at ITV News wrote on : “The damages awarded by NGN to are between £10 and £20 million, according to a well-placed source.”
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The announcement in London’s High Court came despite the Duke of Sussex’s vow that he was the one person who could hold the publishers of The Sun and now-defunct News of the World accountable at trial for unlawful information gathering.
“One of the main reasons for seeing this through is accountability because I’m the last person that can actually achieve that,” he told The New York Times DealBook Summit in December when he said originally he wouldn’t settle.
The Duke of Sussex and Lord Tom Watson are not the only household names to have settled their claims against News Group Newspapers. More than 1,000 people have come to agreements to end their legal action in recent years, including actor Hugh Grant, actress Sienna Miller, ex-footballer Paul Gascoigne, comic Catherine Tate and Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm.