Celebrities win Mirror phone-hacking damages

Britain's Trinity Mirror newspaper is considering an appeal after being ordered to pay more than STG1 million to the celebrities whose phones were hacked.

Former England football player Gascoigne leaves Northallerton magistrates court in Northallerton

Former England football player Paul Gascoigne Source: X02020

More than STG1 million in damages has been awarded to British celebrities including Paul Gascoigne and Sadie Frost over phone hacking by Mirror Group Newspapers.

The ex-England footballer was awarded STG188,250 ($A371,448) at the High Court and actress Frost received STG260,250.

Lawyers for phone-hacking victims claimed Thursday's payouts, totalling about $STG1.2 million, were unparalleled.

Trinity Mirror, which owns MGN, said it was considering an appeal, but revealed it had set aside a further STG4 million to cover the cost of more claims, taking the total to STG16 million.

Eight damages awards were announced at London's High Court on Thursday after a three-week hearing in March to determine the extent of the wrongdoing at the group and what level of compensation was appropriate.

Justice Mann also awarded STG85,000 to TV executive Alan Yentob, STG117,500 and STG157,250 respectively to actresses Shobna Gulati and Lucy Taggart, and STG155,000 to soap star Shane Richie.

The judge said the victims had all suffered a serious infringement of privacy and the scale of hacking was very substantial.

Gerald Shamash, solicitor for Gascoigne, said his client was "relieved to have finally found out that his private information was hacked, resulting in many articles that grossly intruded into his private life, rather than having been leaked by someone close to him".

Frost's solicitor, Mark Thomson, said she was thrilled with the outcome.

In a statement, Trinity Mirror said it had accepted it needed to compensate phone-hacking victims, but added that its initial view of the judgment was that the basis used for calculating damages was incorrect.

The judge's ruling will provide a framework for resolving similar civil actions in the pipeline.


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Published 21 May 2015 11:30pm
Updated 22 May 2015 8:42am
Source: AAP

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