UK's Mirror newspaper group refused appeal over record damages to phone-hacking victims

The publisher of the Mirror newspaper has been refused permission to appeal against a record £1.2m award of damages to eight people whose phones were hacked by its journalists writing celebrity stories.

However, the court was told there was no doubt Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which publishes the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, would continue with its legal challenge in the court of appeal.

Lord Pannick, QC, for MGN, a subsidiary of Trinity Mirror, said the compensation awarded had been comparable to those who had sustained moderate brain damage or serious psychiatric harm.

Seeking permission to appeal on Wednesday, he said: “It can’t be disputed that this case does raise issues are important, that are unresolved above the level of the high court and are difficult.”

He said that in awarding the damages Mr Justice Mann had “double counted”, when a claimant had been the subject of a series of articles, and had awarded damages comparable to serious personal injury cases. He also said the awards were disproportionate to breaches of privacy cases in Strasbourg. The judge, he said, awarded separate awards for distress and for hacking, but should instead have used a “global approach” covering the “totality of wrongs”.

David Sherborne, counsel for the eight claimants, said the appeal was “hopeless”.

“The reason that it is higher than hitherto privacy case is we are taking about multiple articles and serious levels of intrusion never seen before,” Sherborne said.

He added that the damages awarded for a single article did not exceed the £60,000 awarded to Max Mosley in his privacy case against the News of The World.

The judge refused permission to appeal, saying MGN’s arguments had “no real prospect of success”.

Pannick said there was “no doubt” MGN would now apply directly to the court of appeal.

Actor Sadie Frost received the largest sum of £260,250, with former England footballer Paul Gascoigne getting £188,250. Mann awarded £85,000 to BBC executive Alan Yentob, £117,500 and £157,250 respectively to actors Shobna Gulati and Lucy Taggart, and £155,000 to soap star Shane Richie.

TV producer Robert Ashworth, who was married to actor Tracy Shaw, received £201,250, and flight attendant Lauren Alcorn, who had a relationship with soccer star Rio Ferdinand, was awarded £72,500.

The judge said the awards, unparalleled in any UK privacy case, were because the invasions were “so serious and so prolonged.”

Earlier, the court heard that Yentob had rejected an out-of-court settlement from MGN which was greater than the sum he was eventually awarded in the trial.

Mann agreed that “in monetary terms it [the offer to settle] was a more valuable offer than the £85,000 he got from me”.

MGN argued this meant Yentob should pay a proportion of his own costs as he had failed to exceed their offer to settle. The judge ruled that both parties should bear their own costs.

The hearing will continue on Thursday to resolve other matters.

theguardian.com