The Duke of Sussex has settled his legal case against The Sun's publisher over unlawful information-gathering, just before a trial was due to begin. His lawyer, David Sherborne, called the High Court settlement a “monumental victory,” adding that "News UK is finally held to account for its illegal actions and blatant disregard for the law.” Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00In a monumental victory today, News UK have admitted that The Sun, the flagship title
00:08for Rupert Murdoch's UK media empire, has indeed engaged in illegal practices.
00:16This represents a vindication for the hundreds of other claimants who were strong-armed into
00:22settling without being able to get to the truth of what was done to them.
00:29After endless resistance, denials and legal battles by newsgroup newspapers, including
00:36spending more than a billion pounds in payouts and in legal costs, as well as paying off
00:42those in the know in order to prevent the full picture from coming out, News UK is finally
00:49held to account for its illegal actions and its blatant disregard for the law.
00:56The truth that has now been exposed is that newsgroup newspapers unlawfully engaged more
01:02than 100 private investigators over at least 16 years on more than 35,000 occasions.
01:11This happened as much at The Sun as it did at the News of the World, with the knowledge
01:18of all the editors and executives going to the very top of the company.
01:25What's even worse is that in the wake of the 2006 arrest of a Royal Correspondent,
01:31there was an extensive conspiracy to cover up what had really been going on and who knew
01:37about it. Senior executives deliberately obstructed justice by deleting over 30 million emails,
01:47destroying backup tapes and making false denials, all in the face of an ongoing police
01:54investigation. They then repeatedly lied under oath to cover their tracks, both in court
02:02and at the Leveson Public Inquiry. Today's result has been achieved only through the
02:08sheer resilience of Prince Harry and Tom Watson, whose willingness to take newsgroup newspapers
02:14to trial has led directly to this historic admission of unlawfulness at The Sun.
02:20Today the lies are laid bare. Today the cover-ups are exposed and today proves that no one stands
02:28above the law. The time for accountability has arrived.