Four hacking claims against the publisher of the Mirror have been dismissed as a judge found the claimants could have known they had a case before the six-year time limit was up.
However one case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) from a pool of test cases was allowed to continue.
Some 57 people are suing MGN, with five cases being used in a preliminary trial to determine whether they should be dismissed as they were brought too late because they came more than six years after the claimants should have known they had a potential case.
At the hearing in January, lawyers for MGN said the publisher “accepts the allegations of wrongdoing against it” and “concealed its voicemail interception and other unlawful information gathering at the time that it was taking place”, but said the claims should be dismissed as they could have been brought earlier.
The five cases heard were those of publicist Melanie Cantor, PR agent Murray Harkin, model Paul Sculfor, dancer Camilla Sacre-Dallerup and designer Patrick Cox.
Of these, four have now been dismissed under the Limitation Act 1980 and only Sculfor’s case is allowed to continue.
An MGN spokesperson said: “We welcomed the judgment in 2023 and today’s judgment, which have both given the business the clarity to move forward from events that took place many years ago,” referring to other cases dismissed on limitation grounds.
“Today’s outcome has no impact on our financial provision which remains unchanged.”
Mirror hacking victim was ‘partly but causally misled’ by stories
Mr Justice Fancourt ruled that Cantor, Harkin, Sacre-Dallerup and Cox knew, or would have known if they had investigated with “reasonable diligence”, that they had a “worthwhile claim” before the deadline.
However, Sculfor was “partly but causally misled by MGN’s publications: he blamed his father and close friends, and moved on”, the judge said.
“He was therefore not required to be particularly attentive to the developing phone hacking story, and he did not in fact hear much about it. This was in part because he was living abroad until 2013.”
Sculfor had “no connection or conversation with anyone who believed that they had been hacked or who brought a claim” until April 2020.
Sculfor’s lawyer Ellen Gallagher of Hamlins said: “Mr Sculfor has shown great courage in pursuing his claim for nearly five years in the face of MGN’s tactics which have served to delay its progress, including an unsuccessful attempt to have his claim struck out in 2022.
“The Court has already found MGN used unlawful techniques to obtain the private information of numerous individuals in the cases of Gulati v MGN Limited in 2015 and Duke of Sussex v MGN Limited in 2023. It is telling that MGN has not denied liability in Mr Sculfor’s case but has instead raised technical legal arguments designed to prevent claimants such as Mr Sculfor from pursuing legitimate claims.
“We are now looking forward to the successful conclusion of Mr Sculfor’s claim.”
Sculfor said: “Words cannot fully express the years of emotional pain and distress this has caused, including the damage to some of my friendships and relationships. It created a constant sense of fear and paranoia that people close to me were speaking about my private life and revealing personal information. This situation has affected not only me, but also my family and friends, and it has had a significant impact on my career.
“I firmly believe that a free press plays an important role in society, but it must operate with honesty, responsibility, and integrity.
‘Unnecessarily cautious legal advice’ for Harkin
Harkin, on the other hand, “knew well before” the six-year time limit that he had a “worthwhile claim” but received “unnecessarily cautious legal advice”, the judge said.
“He did not bring a claim before the Relevant Date because he sought advice from a solicitor in 2012 and another solicitor in 2014-2015, and was advised that he did not have a sufficiently strong case to merit bringing a claim.”
Harkin founded the PR company R-JH Limited with Sophie Rhys-Jones (who later became the Countess of Wessex) and they were the subject of a ‘Fake Sheikh’ sting by the News of the World’s Mazher Mahmood. He complained about more than 30 articles written about him in his claim, 13 published before the sting and a further 21 afterwards.
Police email suggested ‘case closed’ to dancer Sacre-Dallerup
Former Strictly Come Dancing professional Sacre-Dallerup complained about ten articles published by MGN alleged to have included private information sourced from her voicemails or through blagging or other unlawful means.
Mr Justice Fancourt said Sacre-Dallerup could have discovered relevant facts about a potential case after speaking to the Metropolitan Police in 2014 or 2015.
She enquired with the police on the advice of a friend to try to find out whether she was a phone-hacking victim.
She was told her name and address had appeared on what was “considered to be a hacking list” via an email in 2005 from News of the World features editor Jules Stenson to Dan Evans, reporter – both later convicted for phone hacking. Evans also worked at the Sunday Mirror.
The judge said: “Despite this indication that her name and address had been in the possession of convicted phone hackers, and that one of them worked for the Sunday Mirror, which had published articles about her and was now being investigated, Ms Sacre-Dallerup did nothing.
“She said that she took this email from DS Elwell as ‘case closed’. She did not ask what being on the list meant, and did no research on the internet about phone hacking at MGN or Mr Evans.”
Claims from Cantor and Cox were also dismissed, who the judge said did not have articles written about them but could have known about a potential case “as a result of their knowledge of phone hacking affecting those with whom they had close relationships, or who had brought phone hacking claims”.
Mr Justice Fancourt said that by May 2015 Cantor had “sufficient facts to realise that she was likely to have a claim worth pursuing. Even if she did not know, she could have found out by exercising reasonable diligence at about that time.”
And Cox “could have known sufficient facts if he had pursued inquiries by any reasonable means with reasonable diligence from March 2015.”
The judge added: “In both their cases, it was their knowledge that a close friend and confidante at the relevant time was affected by and was alleging phone hacking that either gave them the necessary link between their private information and MGN’s wrongdoing, or put them on notice to inquire whether there was a link.”
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