The actor Kris Marshall, known for his role in the film Love Actually and TV series including the BBC’s Death in Paradise, has settled his phone-hacking claim against the parent company of the Sun and now-defunct News of the World.
Marshall, who fronted BT’s advertising campaigns from 2005 to 2011, is understood to have received a six-figure sum in damages.
News Group Newspapers, the parent company of the Sun and Sun on Sunday, offered an apology as part of the settlement handed down at a session of the high court conducted remotely on Wednesday.
“Our client had his privacy grossly invaded by News Group Newspapers in a manner which caused him considerable distress,” said Alex Cochrane, a lawyer at Hamlins representing Marshall. “It is absolutely right that they have apologised today, acknowledged the harm they caused in open court and paid him compensation. Kris is very pleased with the apology and the successful outcome in this matter.”
The legal action was against the News of the World relating to articles published between 2002 and 2010, a time when it was the UK’s biggest-selling Sunday newspaper.
As part of the settlement, News Group Newspapers made no admission of liability in relation to Marshall’s allegations that journalists at the Sun were also involved in voicemail interception and other forms of unlawful information gathering.
The Sun has always strongly insisted that phone hacking only took place at its sister newspaper the News of the World, which closed in 2011 at the height of the phone-hacking scandal.
“The defendant is here today, through me, to offer its sincere apologies to the claimant [Marshall] for the distress caused to him by the invasion of privacy by individuals working for or on behalf of News of the World,” lawyers acting for News Group Newspapers said. “The defendant accepts that such activity should never have taken place, and it had no right to intrude in the private life of the claimant in this way.”
Lawyers representing victims of phone hacking have about 50 claims still outstanding and are seeking a legal ruling on Wednesday to extend the time period of admissible claims, which currently stands at 1998 to 2010, to 1994 to 2011. If Justice Mann agrees, News Group Newspapers will be open to numerous further potential legal actions from phone hacking claimants.
The court date for trial for any outstanding phone-hacking claimants that have not settled is October.
