A London judge has awarded 140,600 pounds ($180,700) to Prince Harry for the phone hacking he was subjected to by the Mirror Group of Newspapers (MGN). Judge Timothy Fancourt has taken three test cases including that of Prince Harry.

He found that journalists of the Mirror group indulged in unethical activities and the senior editors tried to cover it up. It is for the complicity of the editors that he got aggravated damages.

It was found that the hacking had happened 15 times between the end of 2003 and April 2009. Prnce Harry, the youngest of King Charles of Britain, who now lives in California with his American wife Meghan Markle, said in a statement read out by his lawyer, “Today is a great day for truth as well as accountability. My commitment to seeing this case through is based on my belief in our need and collective right to a free and honest press, and one which is properly accountable when necessary.”  

The Mirror group spokesperson said, “We welcome today’s judgment that gives the business the necessary clarity to move forward from events that took place many years ago. Where historical wrongdoing took place, we apologise unreservedly, have taken full responsibility and paid appropriate compensation.” Prince Harry is pursuing cases against the Daily Mail and Sun.

The tabloid press journalists go the farthest in getting a sensational story, breaking norms and rules, resorting to vile and criminal methods to get what they want. The people who are their targets are mostly the celebrities, which includes the filmstars, and in Britain the royal family has become the target.

Though the tabloid press exists in Germany and France and other European countries, it is in Britain that tabloid journalism is an established tradition, and they specialise in publishing titillating stories. No one has taken the stance that it should be banned. Everyone bears it with a grin as it were.

But the limits were crossed when media baron Rupert Murdoch’s News Corps breached all norms when they played foul in the kidnapping of a child and kept up the fiction that the child was alive with the parents when the child was dead. It created an outrage in Britain and Murdoch and his editors had to appear in court. But even there was no demand that tabloid journalism should be banned.

The British royal family had become fair game, especially in the case of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. One of the reasons that they had decided to step down from their royal duties was the intense pressure that the tabloid press kept against them, and especially with Meghan Markle. The couple had moved out of Britain.

 Prince Harry has shown grit and determination to pursue the cases against the tabloid press because he sees himself and his wife as victims of the kind of journalism practised by the tabloids. He is very bitter about them, and he says that they (the tabloid journalists) are “criminals masquerading as journalists”, in which he included senior executives and editors.

He does not, however, single out tabloid journalists and editors but calls out the press in general. The reason could be that tabloid journalists enjoy all the privileges, including immunities, of the press in general. Instead of bringing a law against tabloid journalism, Britain provides that the tabloids can be hauled up before the courts for breaking the law. But it would need the social standing of British royalty and its economic support to take the tabloids to the cleaners as it were. It also seems to be the case that tabloid journalism does not create the buzz it used to create earlier. There is a change in mood and flavour in Britain.