It is 10 years since the big phone-hacking trial ended at the Old Bailey. Ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson went to prison; ex-News International chief Rebekah Brooks walked free. It was the climax of a scandal that provoked seven police inquiries into the interception of communications, into briber y and into the theft of data on behalf of some of Britain’s most powerful newspapers—but it was not the end.
Since then, hundreds of victims have gone to the civil courts to sue not only Rupert Murdoch’s UK company but also Mirror Group Newspapers and Associated Newspapers, which owns the Daily Mail. With the rare exception of Prince Harry in his case last year against MGN, none of them has been able to afford to go to a full trial, but many of them have been able to persuade the High Court to order disclosure of material from police files and, more importantly, from the inner records of the news organisations. The claimants have now amassed a trove of new evidence including emails, call data, records of payments to private investigators, agenda notes,