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Charlotte Church settles over phone hacking lawsuit

By | Published on Friday 24 February 2012

Charlotte Church

Ah Charlotte, you let us down. Singer Charlotte Church yesterday finally reached an out of court settlement with News International over the hacking of her voicemail by former employees of the now defunct News Of The World.

As previously reported, Church was the last of the first batch of celebrities who sued the paper over phone hacking (whose legal claim was court ready) not to settle, and it looked like that case might go properly to court, finally throwing a proper judicial spotlight onto the NOTW scandal, much of which is still shadowed in secrecy as the Metropolitan Police’s criminal investigation crawls along.

But yesterday Church, who said stories about her personal life which she believes were sourced from her voicemail account caused her and her parents great distress, settled with the newspaper company. Reports suggest she may have got £500,000 in damages, £180,000 of which would cover legal costs.

That means News International can avoid any embarrassing revelations in court just as it re-enters the Sunday tabloid market with NOTWv2, aka the Sun On Sunday. Other more recent celebrity civil lawsuits continue to go through the motions, with more being added all the time, though most if not all will be settled out of court, costing NI millions.



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