Published
UKDiana’s ex-butler will be compensated by the “Mirror”
After being spied on by a British newspaper, a former employee of Princess Diana obtained compensation and an apology on Tuesday.
Butler Paul Burrell’s relationship with the princess had deteriorated following suspicions were raised once morest him.
AFP/Photo d’archives
Princess Diana’s ex-butler and confidant Paul Burrell has won an apology and compensation from the editor of ‘The Daily Mirror’ tabloid for hacks into his voicemail, we have learned during a hearing on Tuesday.
Before the High Court in London, the Mirror Group Newspapers accepted responsibility for these hacks between 1995 and 2008, during the period of the divorce of Lady Di and the current King Charles III, then well following the death of the princess in 1997, in Paris.
“Sincere Apologies”
Presenting his client’s “sincere apologies”, the lawyer for this media group Alexander Vakil acknowledged “the suffering caused by obtaining private information and access to his voicemail”. He said the ‘Mirror’ editor promised to ‘never repeat such acts’. The amount of compensation paid was not specified.
The British press was splashed in the early 2000s by a vast scandal of illegal tapping of telephone messages which led to the closure of the “News of the World” in 2011, while the “Mirror” was condemned in 2015 to pay record damages to several celebrities.
His relationship with the princess suffered
Paul Burrell’s lawyer, Francis Leonard, underlined on Tuesday the effects of the illegal tapping admitted by the leftist tabloid: “During Diana’s lifetime, the activities of the defendant caused the deterioration of the relationship (between Burrell and the Princess ), because she mistakenly believed that highly sensitive personal information was being leaked to the press.”
These wiretaps would also have disrupted his relations with his defense, when he was accused of having stolen hundreds of personal items from Diana when she died, charges of which he was cleared. In addition to tapping his voicemail, private detectives were hired at least three times by the “Mirror” to obtain information from the ex-butler, his defense said.
(AFP)
