Prince Harry settles a case against a UK tabloid publisher that hacked his phone

LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry has reached an out-of-court settlement with a tabloid newspaper publisher that invaded his privacy with phone hacking and other illegal snooping, Harry’s lawyer said Friday.

Attorney David Sherborne said Mirror Group Newspapers had agreed to pay Harry’s legal costs and would make an interim payment of 400,000 pounds ($505,000).

Harry was awarded 140,000 pounds ($177,000) in damages in December after the judge found that phone hacking was “widespread and habitual” at Mirror Group Newspapers in the 1990s, and that executives at the papers covered it up. Judge Timothy Fancourt found that Harry’s phone was hacked “to a modest extent.”

Harry’s case against Mirror Group, which publishes the Daily Mirror and two other tabloids, is one of several he has launched in a campaign against the British media, which he blames for blighting his life and hounding both his late mother Princess Diana and his wife Meghan.

In June, he became the first senior member of the royal family to testify in court in over a century during the trial of his case against the Mirror.

Harry, also known as the Duke of Sussex, wasn’t in court for Friday’s ruling. He traveled to London from his home in California earlier this week to visit his father King Charles III, who has been diagnosed with cancer. Harry flew back to the U.S. 24 hours later.

The Associated Press