By Rebecca Lawson

It’s now been more than two months since Lord Watson & Prince Harry’s claims against News Group - publisher of The Sun, The News of the World and The Times - were settled, and The Sun made a humiliating apology for illegally intruding on the claimants.

This admission marks a significant event in the long-running battle for press accountability, exposing years of misconduct and corporate cover-ups at Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloid empire.

It confirms that The Sun’s longstanding denials of being involved in illegal activity were false.  

Attention now turns to the Government.

Will they follow-up on these revelations with the Leveson Part Two inquiry, which had been promised to victims of press abuse, and would investigate the individuals and executives who oversaw this wrongdoing?  Or will they help those responsible to evade accountability, by suppressing the Inquiry as the previous Conservative administration had done?

The Road to the Trial That Never Was

The case against The Sun was set to be a watershed moment. The claimants, Prince Harry and Lord Watson, alleged that illegal activity such as phone hacking and unlawful information gathering were widespread at the newspaper, and were subsequently covered up. The Sun, on the other hand, had long maintained its innocence.

At the eleventh hour before trial, lawyers for both sides orchestrated a last-minute delay, much to the frustration of the presiding judge. This was part of a long-running legal strategy for The Sun: deny wrongdoing for as long as possible and only settle when faced with the prospect of public courtroom scrutiny. 

And then, the settlement: finally an acknowledgement that The Sun’s denials of illegality were bogus, and the case would no longer proceed.

The Sun’s Admission of Guilt

The Sun’s admission of illegality is a damning indictment of the paper’s past conduct and of the senior executives who presided over it. It also vindicates those who have spent years fighting for justice – the victims, the campaigners, and the journalists exposing press corruption, and who had called out The Sun years ago, only to face aggressive denials from the publisher.

Hacked Off Board Director Emma Jones called the moment “humiliating” for The Sun, highlighting that the company had spent over a billion pounds – resources that could have been invested in quality journalism – in legal battles aimed at covering up its wrongdoing. For years, The Sun and its allies in the press sought to discredit those calling for accountability, from victims of press abuse to organisations like Hacked Off. Now, the truth is undeniable: those campaigners were right all along.

The Cover-Up Exposed

One of the most damning aspects of this case is the extent of the cover-up. NGN’s long-standing claims that The Sun was not involved in illegal activity were not just false – they were, in the view of the claimants, part of a deliberate attempt to mislead the public and Parliament. For over a decade, the newspaper industry has lobbied against meaningful press regulation; The Sun using its supposed innocence as a shield. Now we know the truth.

What Happens Next?

This trial has been an effective way of confirming the specific legal point that The SUn commissioned illegal activity.  But it is not an effective way of investigating who was responsible, how it was covered up, and what must change to prevent it repeating.  These are matters for Leveson Part Two.

This moment must be a turning point. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his government must proceed with the Inquiry, to ensure News Group is properly held to account.

This case proves what victims and campaigners have argued for years: newspaper publishers with a history of illegality cannot be trusted to be honest about their activities, and must be subject to independent investigation. Without Leveson Part Two, history will repeat itself, and more victims will suffer at the hands of publishers which believe themselves above the law.

The Sun may have settled, but the fight for justice is far from over. 

Add your voice to calls for Leveson Part Two today, to bring the justice and accountability which the public and victims of press abuse deserve.

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