Princess Diana’s former butler and confidant, Paul Burrell, has won an apology and compensation from the tabloid’s publisher. the daily mirror for hacking into his phone messaging, we learned during a hearing on Tuesday.
Before the High Court in London, Mirror Group Newspapers accepted responsibility for these hacks between 1995 and 2008, during the period of Lady Diana’s divorce from the current King Charles III, then long after the princess’s death in 1997 in Paris.
By presenting the “most sincere apologies” of his client, the lawyer for this media group Alexander Vakil acknowledged “the suffering caused by obtaining private information and accessing his voice mail.”
He said that the editor of the Mirror he vowed “never to repeat such acts”. The amount of compensation paid was not specified.
Eavesdropping scandal
The British press was spattered in the early 2000s by a major illegal wiretapping scandal that led to the 2011 closure of the World Newswhile the Mirror it was ordered in 2015 to pay record damages to several celebrities.
Paul Burrell’s lawyer, Francis Leonard, underlined on Tuesday the effects of the illegal wiretapping admitted by the left-wing tabloid: “During Diana’s life, the defendant’s activities caused the deterioration of the relationship (between Burrell and the princess) , as she mistakenly believed that highly sensitive personal information was being leaked to the press.”
The wiretaps also reportedly disrupted his relationship with his defense when he was accused of stealing hundreds of Diana’s personal items when she died, charges of which he was acquitted.
In addition to tapping his voice mail, the police hired private detectives at least three times. Mirror to obtain information from the ex-butler, he pointed out his defense.
Source: BFM TV
