LONDON—A unit of newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror
PLC on Thursday was ordered to pay compensation to eight
celebrities whose voicemails were intercepted by its journalists, a
practice known as phone hacking.
The High Court in London ordered MGN Ltd., the publisher of The
Daily Mirror and People newspaper titles, to pay a total of around
£1.2 million ($1.88 million) to the eight phone-hacking
victims. Among the claimants was Sadie Frost, the former wife of
the actor Jude Law, who was awarded £260,250. The former
soccer player Paul Gascoigne was awarded £188,250 and
British Broadcasting Corporation executive Alan Yentob will receive
£85,000.
The judge hearing the case said the claimants suffered "serious
infringement of their privacy rights."
In a statement, Trinity Mirror said while it accepted it should
pay "approproiate compensation" to the victims, it was considering
whether to appeal the judgement.
"Our initial view of the lengthy judgment is that the basis used
for calculating damages is incorrect," it said.
Trinity Mirror competes with News Corp, the owner of Dow Jones
& Co., which publishes The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones
Newswires. News Corp also owns the Times of London, the Sunday
Times and the Sun, and its U.K. newspaper-publishing business has
been engulfed in its own phone-hacking scandal. The scandal led to
the closure of the company's former tabloid The News of the
World.
Write to Rory Gallivan at rory.gallivan@wsj.com
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