Prince William allegedly struck a behind-doors deal with Rupert Murdoch’s UK publishing arm in 2020 (Picture: Shane Anthony Sinclair/Getty Images)
Prince William was paid a ‘large sum’ by Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper publishing wing to settle a phone-hacking claim in 2020, the High Court has been told.
Documents filed at the High Court by Prince Harry today have alleged this was part of a ‘secret agreement’ between Buckingham Palace and News Group Newspapers (NGN).
Harry launched legal action against the publishing powerhouse in 2019, accusing the Sun and now defunct News of the World tabloids of illegal behaviour.
The accusations, which include phone hacking and obtaining private information by deception, stretch from the mid-1990s until 2016.
Harry has claimed that journalists from the two tabloids elbowed their way into his private life by hacking his voicemails and hiring private investigators.
NGN, however, is asking Justice Fancourt to bin Harry’s suit, claiming that it’s simply too late to do so.
But in response, the Prince of Sussex’s lawyers claimed in documents that William was paid a ‘very large sum’ by NGN in 2020 to settle his own phone-hacking scandal.
Prince William was made a ‘large sum’ by NGN, Prince Harry’s legal team alleged (Picture: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
NGN now wants to go behind a ‘secret agreement’ between the royals and the publisher’s top executives, David Sherborne, Harry’s lawyer, told the London court.
Harry was first made aware of this alleged deal in 2012 which says the royals won’t bring any case against NGN until all other phone-hacking legal proceedings have finished.
After this point, the royals will receive an apology from NGN, it has been claimed.
The late Queen Elizabeth was also involved in the ‘discussions and authorisation’ of the deal, struck to keep the royals out of court.
Buckingham Palace has been approached for comment.
The court document stated: ‘It is important to bear in mind that in responding to this bid by NGN to prevent his claims going to trial, the claimant has had to make public the details of this secret agreement, as well as the fact that his brother, His Royal Highness, Prince William, has recently settled his claim against NGN behind the scenes.’
The duke has claimed his voicemail was hacked by the tabloids (Picture: AP)
Mr Sherborne added: ‘It was agreed directly between these parties, as opposed to their lawyers… that at the conclusion of the Mobile Telephone Voicemail Interception Litigation (MTVIL) News would admit or settle such a claim with an apology.’
‘In 2017, the claimant and the institution began to push for the outstanding claim to be resolved.
‘However, News filibustered in relation to this until, in 2019, the claimant had enough and issued his claim.’
Buckingham Palace and NGN reportedly settled on the undisclosed sum in William’s case to ‘avoid the situation where a member of the royal family would have to sit in the witness box and recount the specific details of the private and highly sensitive voicemails that had been intercepted’, the court papers, quoting from Harry’s witnesses statement, said.
Harry said the palace ‘wanted to avoid at all costs’ having a repeat of the reputational damage caused in the 1990s when an ‘intimate telephone conversation’ between King Charles and now Queen Consort Camilla when he was still married to Princess Diana in the 1990s was published.
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It was part of an alleged ‘secret deal’ between the palace and the publishers.