Supreme Court rejects Trinity Mirror appeal over hacking charges

The UK Supreme Court has rejected Trinity Mirror’s challenge to reduce the £1.2m damages that were awarded to eight phone-hacking victims.

Trinity – whose titles include the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People – brought the appeals against the orders dated 11 June 2015 of Mr Justice Mann, who awarded sums ranging from £72,500 to £260,250 to celebrities such as actress Sadie Frost, soap star and presenter Shane Richie and TV producer Robert Ashworth.

The Mirror Group wanted to appeal on the grounds the awards should have been limited to damages for distress. It said the awards were disproportionate when compared with personal injury awards and the less generous approach adopted by the European Court of Human Rights.

But the appeal was rejected as the Supreme Court said the application did not raise an arguable point of law.

In his ruling back in May, Mr Justice Mann said: “It will be apparent that my awards of damages in this case are very substantial — far more substantial than in any hitherto reported privacy case.

“The fact that they are greater than any other publicly available award results from the fact that the invasions of privacy involved were so serious and so prolonged."

He added: “The length, degree and frequency of all this conduct explains why the sums I have awarded are so much greater than historical awards. People whose private voicemail messages were hacked so often and for so long, and had very significant parts of their private lives exposed, and then reported on, are entitled to significant compensation.”

At 1102 GMT, Trinity Mirror shares were down 0.8% to 132p.