Fern Britton awarded ‘substantial’ damages by News of the World owners over phone-hacking claim
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Fern Britton has been awarded “substantial” damages after the owners of the News of the World apologised over information taken from voicemail messages after her phone was hacked and a story about a gastric band operation.
The 66-year-old television presenter reached an undisclosed settlement after she suffered “damage and distress” for the series of articles which were run in the Sunday newspaper, including details of an operation to help her lose weight.
The payment, from News Group Newspapers Ltd (NGN), which also owns The Sun, was disclosed by lawyers at the Law Courts on Tuesday.
Ellen Roberts, solicitor for Ms Britton, told Mr Justice Fancourt at the London court that the settlement resolved Ms Britton’s claim.
Ms Roberts said that because of Ms Britton’s “career and relationships with high-profile individuals, she was of considerable interest to the press”.
The television personality presented the BBC’s Ready Steady Cook between 1994 and 2000, and ITV’s This Morning for 10 years from 1999.
Ms Britton brought her case against NGN in June 2021, claiming her mobile phone voicemail messages had been “intercepted by the [News of the World’s] journalists” who obtained “private and confidential messages” left by “family and friends”.
The court was told that she had “identified a number of [newspaper] articles which contained her private information… including an exclusive published by the News of the World regarding the claimant’s gastric band operation”.
Ms Roberts added that the coverage of Ms Britton’s operation caused “damage and distress, has had a deep impact on her family relationships, career and mental health, and compromised her reputation in the eyes of the general public”.
‘No admission of liability’
The court heard that Ms Britton, a mother of four, was “pleased to confirm she accepted” NGN’s offer to “resolve her claim on terms confidential between the parties which involve the payment of substantial damages as well as her reasonable costs”.
Ms Roberts added: “The defendant makes no admission of liability in relation to the claimant’s allegations of voicemail interception and/or other unlawful information gathering at The Sun.”
Ben Silverstone, of NGN, said his client issued a “sincere” public apology for “the distress caused to her by the invasion of her privacy by individuals working for or on behalf of the News of the World”.
He added: “The defendant acknowledges that such activity should never have taken place and that it had no right to intrude in the private life of the claimant in this way.”
The News of the World closed in 2011.
The hearing continues.
