Charlotte Church Scores $950,000 Payout Over Phone-Hacking Scandal

Settlement is one of the highest awarded to date, and the singer has vowed to help others "seeking to bring to justice those responsible for this appalling behavior"

By Alexis L. Loinaz Feb 27, 2012 6:02 PMTags
Charlotte Church INFdaily.com

This victory is sweet music to Charlotte Church's ears.

The British songbird has settled with Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers to the tune of roughly $950,000 over allegations that the company's now-defunct News of the World hacked into her phone and caused her and her family severe emotional distress.

According to BBC News, the $950,000 settlement includes $475,000 to cover legal fees and also requires a public apology from the disgraced publisher.

To date, the judgment is one of the highest awarded to a victim of the sprawling phone-hacking scandal. Last May, Jude Law received roughly $205,000, while his ex-girlfriend Sienna Miller was subsequently awarded $162,000.

In a statement, Church, said:

"Today is an important day for me and my family…What I have discovered as the litigation has gone on has sickened and disgusted me. Nothing was deemed off-limits by those who pursued me and my family, just to make money for a multinational news corporation. Whatever I have had to go through, they have suffered as well. They have been harassed, put under surveillance, and my mother was bullied into revealing her own private medical condition for no other reason than they were my parents."

The 25-year-old also added that she believes News Group's apology wasn't sincere and vows to continue helping the investigation.

"In my opinion, they are not truly sorry, only sorry they got caught…For these reasons, having achieved all I was going to achieve through this process, I am now focusing my energies instead on assisting both the criminal investigation and inquiry, as well as others who are seeking to bring to justice those responsible for this appalling behavior."

Church's suit alleged that 33 of the paper's stories drew on illegally sourced information about her family, including a report about her father's extramarital affair that prompted her mother to attempt suicide.

She also claims that the paper leaked news of her pregnancy before she had the chance to personally make the announcement.