Prince Harry and Elton John are among six public figures suing the publisher of the Chron, accusing the British tabloid of illegally obtaining information about them, their lawyers said on Thursday.
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The group “obtained compelling and extremely disturbing evidence that they had been victims of … gross violations of privacy” from Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the lawyers said.
In addition to Prince Harry and Elton John are also the singer’s husband David Furnish, actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost and Doreen Lawrence, the mother of the young Briton Stephen Lawrence, who was the victim of a racist murder in 1993.
The latter has also taken legal action against media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s group, which notably publishes The Sun tabloid.
According to the lawyers for the six plaintiffs, ANL used private investigators to bug the six personalities in their car or at home.
They also allege payments were made to police officers “with corrupt ties to private investigators” to obtain information, medical records were “obtained through deception,” and bank accounts and financial information were made available “through illicit means and manipulation.”
“We completely and unequivocally reject these grotesque slurs, which appear to be nothing more than a planned and orchestrated attempt to drag Mail’s headlines into the 30-year-old article wiretapping scandal,” ANL replied.
The British tabloids were rocked about a decade ago by several illegal wiretapping scandals that had been practiced since the early 2000s.
It was early in the affair in 2005 to tap into messengers from associates of Princes William and Harry, but the emotion had peaked in the summer of 2011 when the News of the World tabloid tapped the voicemail of a missing person and eventually the dead schoolgirl Found Milly Dowler.
The revelations had led to the disastrous shutdown of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday tabloid, who had paid Milly Dowler’s family £2million in a friendly settlement.
While many personalities have sued tabloids after being bugged, this is the first time such lawsuits have been leveled at the Chron’s editor.