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Singer Church gets big NI payout for phone hacking
Source: Agencies |
February 28, 2012, Tuesday
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CHARLOTTE Church, who testified about being hounded by Rupert Murdoch's journalists when she was a teen singing sensation, received 600,000 pounds (US$951,000) yesterday in a settlement from News International.
Despite her legal victory, Church lambasted the media mogul's empire, saying the entire experience - years of tabloid intrusions and more years of legal battles - had horrified her.
"What I have discovered as the litigation has gone on has sickened and disgusted me. Nothing was deemed off limits by those who pursued me and my family, just to make money for a multinational news corporation," she said outside court.
Church, 26, was present at London's High Court for the reading of a statement resolving her claim that 33 articles in the now-defunct News of the World tabloid were the product of journalists illegally hacking into her family's voice mails. The settlement includes 300,000 pounds in legal costs and a public apology but Church said she did not believe News International's apology was sincere.
"I have also discovered that despite the apology which the newspaper has just given in court, these people were prepared to go to any lengths to prevent me exposing their behavior," she said. "They are not truly sorry. They are just sorry they got caught."
News International, a division of Murdoch's News Corp, has tried hard to keep phone hacking cases from going to trial. It has launched its own compensation program, overseen by a respected former judge, and has paid out millions in out-of-court settlements for about 60 cases, including one brought by actor Jude Law, former soccer star Paul Gascoigne and actress Sienna Miller.
The lawsuits stem from revelations of phone hacking and other illegal tactics at the News of the World, where journalists routinely intercepted voice mails of those in the public eye in a relentless search for scoops.
Murdoch closed the 168-year-old tabloid in July amid a wave of public revulsion over its 2002 interception of voice mails belonging to a missing 13-year-old girl, Milly Dowler, who was later found murdered. Murdoch and his company paid millions to the Dowler family.
The scandal has spawned three parallel police investigations and a UK judge-led inquiry into media ethics, where Church spoke of the intense, often overwhelming, media intrusion into her family's private life.
Meanwhile, a senior British police official said yesterday that Britain's biggest selling tabloid, The Sun, has a culture of making illegal payments to public officials in return for stories.
The Metropolitan Police's Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers told Britain's media ethics inquiry that the newspaper, part of Murdoch's global empire, openly referred to paying its sources and that such payments were authorized at a senior level.
Akers said journalists paid not only police officers but police, military, health and government officials. One official received a total of 80,000 pounds (US$126,912) over several years, Akers said, adding that police also are investigating if public officials were placed on retainers by newspapers.
Despite her legal victory, Church lambasted the media mogul's empire, saying the entire experience - years of tabloid intrusions and more years of legal battles - had horrified her.
"What I have discovered as the litigation has gone on has sickened and disgusted me. Nothing was deemed off limits by those who pursued me and my family, just to make money for a multinational news corporation," she said outside court.
Church, 26, was present at London's High Court for the reading of a statement resolving her claim that 33 articles in the now-defunct News of the World tabloid were the product of journalists illegally hacking into her family's voice mails. The settlement includes 300,000 pounds in legal costs and a public apology but Church said she did not believe News International's apology was sincere.
"I have also discovered that despite the apology which the newspaper has just given in court, these people were prepared to go to any lengths to prevent me exposing their behavior," she said. "They are not truly sorry. They are just sorry they got caught."
News International, a division of Murdoch's News Corp, has tried hard to keep phone hacking cases from going to trial. It has launched its own compensation program, overseen by a respected former judge, and has paid out millions in out-of-court settlements for about 60 cases, including one brought by actor Jude Law, former soccer star Paul Gascoigne and actress Sienna Miller.
The lawsuits stem from revelations of phone hacking and other illegal tactics at the News of the World, where journalists routinely intercepted voice mails of those in the public eye in a relentless search for scoops.
Murdoch closed the 168-year-old tabloid in July amid a wave of public revulsion over its 2002 interception of voice mails belonging to a missing 13-year-old girl, Milly Dowler, who was later found murdered. Murdoch and his company paid millions to the Dowler family.
The scandal has spawned three parallel police investigations and a UK judge-led inquiry into media ethics, where Church spoke of the intense, often overwhelming, media intrusion into her family's private life.
Meanwhile, a senior British police official said yesterday that Britain's biggest selling tabloid, The Sun, has a culture of making illegal payments to public officials in return for stories.
The Metropolitan Police's Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers told Britain's media ethics inquiry that the newspaper, part of Murdoch's global empire, openly referred to paying its sources and that such payments were authorized at a senior level.
Akers said journalists paid not only police officers but police, military, health and government officials. One official received a total of 80,000 pounds (US$126,912) over several years, Akers said, adding that police also are investigating if public officials were placed on retainers by newspapers.
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