A campaign group calling for reform of UK press-regulation has said it's a "humiliating and embarrassing" day for The Sun after they apologised for "seriously intruding" into Prince Harry's personal life. The board director of Hacked Off, Emma Jones, called for a police investigation following the "monumental decision". The settlement comes after a long-running legal dispute between the Duke of Sussex and News Group Newspapers (NGN) over privacy invasion. Report by Faragt. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Emma, the consequences of this are absolutely huge. There's a potential criminal investigation
00:06for what was said or not said to police, there's potential perjury, there's lying to Parliament.
00:11I mean, on every level, this is a monumental decision by the court.
00:17Well, this is a monumental decision by the court and it's also a monumental apology because
00:23it's been a humiliating climb down for the Sun. For years they've denied any wrongdoing
00:28and criminality and now they've come clean and said, yes, there was criminality, there
00:32was wrongdoing at the Sun. And they denied that at Leveson, they actually used that as
00:38an excuse for a public inquiry not to go ahead, the second part of Leveson. And now we're
00:42in this position where we're looking at potential perjury, we're looking at the fact that they've
00:48lied in committees, that for years there's been this potential cover-up. We won't be
00:54able to investigate what exactly that cover-up entails and that's why this agreement's been
00:59made today, I think. Partly to make sure that the deletion of emails that's been talked
01:04about and the corporate cover-up that apparently executives oversaw is not going to be exposed.
01:12This is not really a pebble thrown into the pond, this is a giant boulder that's gone
01:16in there because the waves are huge, the repercussions are huge because of what the police might
01:22now have to do, what politicians might now have to do.
01:25Well, surely this should now spark a police investigation because the evidence is now
01:30there, the wrongdoing and the criminality is laid bare. For the police not to investigate
01:36this fully, they would have to have a really good excuse and I don't think there is one,
01:43that's the job of the police. There's also the cancellation of Leveson Part 2, that's
01:48the first time a public inquiry's ever been cancelled by Matt Hancock in 2018. I think
01:53we can make our own assumptions about why that was but we're now looking to the Prime
01:57Minister and saying, look what this corporate cover-up means, look what this newspaper have
02:03admitted to. If criminality took place, we need a re-instation of this public inquiry.
02:11So it will be very interesting to see what Keir Starmer, who as Tom Watson says, if he
02:15believes in fairness, will do.
02:18In court, in the statement, there was no admission of illegality by News Group newspapers in
02:26relation to what happened when the phone hacking investigations began. They were very clear
02:31to point that out. You're suggesting that there is now evidence of illegality?
02:37I think the wording was very interesting, they're talking about unlawful behaviour in
02:41relation to The Sun. That's on the same scale, I think, as the unlawful behaviour that we
02:47saw at the News of the World. They were keen to direct the attention to News of the World
02:52activity in relation to their apology to Harry, but that admission of unlawful behaviour has
02:57never been made before. For The Sun to say that is huge, it's humiliating and it's embarrassing.
03:05But more than that, it means there should be now a full investigation.
03:11Previously, NGN always said this was one rogue reporter. You say this went to the very top.
03:17What does this mean for the senior executives? What does it mean for Rebecca Brooks, for
03:21James Murdoch, for Rupert Murdoch?
03:24Justice was never going to be done while senior executives were allowed to point the finger
03:32at reporters who were merely doing their jobs. This has never been about the individual journalists
03:37who had to put up with a bullying culture and rules that were passed down by the senior
03:42executives. They were the ones who signed this off and they're the ones who got off
03:46scot-free. Actually, people like Rebecca Brooks have been rewarded for their endeavours. This
03:53is why this is important. We've always said at Hacked Off, and I think the wider public
03:58have always said, it's important that those senior corporate executives who are paid a
04:02huge amount of money should be brought to justice if they have behaved unlawfully. And
04:07today they have admitted that they did.
04:10This is now time, you say, for a criminal investigation into the activities of senior
04:15managers at News Group newspapers.
04:17I think it's time for a criminal investigation. And I think it's also time to investigate
04:23whether or not perjury took place. And it's time to reinstate Leveson Part 2. And it's
04:28also time to look at all those billions of pounds that have been spent on trying to silence
04:35people who've been victims of the press, who weren't powerful enough to come to court like
04:40Harry wanted to. And ask why did Rupert Murdoch decide to spend his money on cover-ups and
04:46silencing people rather than spend money on good public interest journalism and the profession
04:52that he claims to care about so much.