Since then we have taken significant steps to strengthen the position of Claimants, including:
- A successful application to broaden the time period over which it is alleged that hacking took place at the Features desk run by NGN;
- Enabling Claimants to rely on articles alleged to contain information obtained by phone-hacking from a wider group of journalists;
- A successful application to allow claimants to plead articles published by The Sun newspaper;
- Pleading a case specifically in relation to the alleged concealment and destruction of evidence of phone-hacking by NGN’s newspapers; and
- Numerous successful disclosure applications to enable Claimants to better understand the extent of unlawful information-gathering, and the impact on individual cases.
Phone Hacking Claims against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN)
Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) is the second major newspaper group to have admitted that phone hacking took place. Hamlins’ team acted for Lauren Alcorn, one of the first Claimants to take action against MGN and one of just 8 “representative Claimants” to take their case to trial in 2015. This resulted in a judgment – Gulati and others v MGN – which set down the basis on which all future phone-hacking cases will be assessed.
The Judge awarded separate sums of damages for various elements of the wrong-doing, including for:
- Call data records showing calls from journalists to Claimants’ mobile phones;
- Private investigator invoices;
- The period of time over which a Claimant was hacked; and
- Articles published by newspapers containing information obtained through hacking.
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