Taylor Hampton secures NightJack payout from Linklaters client The Times
Taylor Hampton consultant Patrick Daulby has secured a £42,500 damages payout from the The Times newspaper for NightJack blogger Richard Horton.
Michael Silverleaf QC
The newspaper’s publishers, Times Newspapers, instructed a Linklaters team led by commercial litigation partner Christa Band and global litigation head Michael Bennett and associate Emily Cox. Their instructed counsel was Michael Silverleaf QC of 11 South Square Chambers. Band and Silverleaf are instructed as advisers for News International on all outstanding phone-hacking claims against it, having replaced Olswang (15 March 2012).
Daulby, Taylor Hampton consultant Mark Lewis and Hogarth Chambers’ Jeremy Reed ensured the payout for Lancashire detective Richard Horton, who was exposed by The Times as the author of the anonymous NightJack police blog when a reporter hacked into his personal email account in 2009 (13 April 2012).
The costs to be paid by The Times, which are yet to be confirmed, are expected to be six figures, The Lawyer understands.
Horton claimed aggravated and exemplary damages from Times Newspapers for breach of confidence, misuse of private information and deceit.
Reed has been involved in several phone-hacking cases including acting for former footballer Paul Gascoigne, actor Steve Coogan and politician George Galloway in phone-hacking claims against the News of the World and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
Last year it emerged that former The Times reporter Patrick Foster had admitted to bosses that he had hacked into Horton’s private email account before publication and that the paper had not made the High Court aware of that when it succeeded in overturning an injunction preventing it from naming NightJack.
A criminal investigation is ongoing. Alastair Brett, the former legal chief at The Times, has been interviewed under caution by police investigating allegations of computer hacking in relation to the NightJack case (21 September 2012). He is being represented by Corker Binning associate Anna Rothwell.
In an article published in today’s The Times, the paper confirmed it had agreed to pay Horton damages plus legal costs.
The email hacking emerged in evidence given by The Times editor James Harding to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards.
Readers' comments (2)
Anonymous | 9-Oct-2012 5:36 pm
here we have a case where the newspaper was clearly in the wrong but still it wheels out a magic circle firm to defend a claim worth £42,500. What does that say about how News International is using its legal teams?
To me it says that they are beginning to use the tactics of the big litigants in spend spend spending on lawyers and counsel to try and badger the opponent into settling. That is outrageous and as chair of the management standards committee at NI tony Grabiner should be ashamed for letting this happen.
The paper clearly blew his cover and was clearly in the wrong.
Meanwhile NI is trying to stop any phone hacking case from getting to court so that no one can actually find out what happened.
What we'd really really like to know is how deep is NI's litigation pot of gold???
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Mr Grumpy | 9-Oct-2012 9:39 pm
Good to see that Linklaters know how to resource what, appears, to be a straightforward litigation matter with two partners (including a man so damn important he is described as "Global Litigation Head") together with an associate (who presumably did the work.
I would decry the whole thing as a scandal but, then again, as News International is picking-uo the tab I cannot manage any righteous indignation.
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