By Iain Gilbert
Date: Tuesday 03 Oct 2017
LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - National and regional publisher Trinity Mirror has reached an agreement with Steve Coogan for a six-figure pay-out over charges that journalists at the Mirror had allegedly hacked the comedian's phone.
Speaking outside the High Court in London, Coogan confirmed that he would receive a "six-figure sum" and while he did not reveal the exact amount, he said most of the money would go to good causes.
Trinity Mirror was reportedly facing more than 100 civil claims for phone-hacking with litigation expected to cost the company £35.5m as pay-outs were also made to the likes of Paul Gascoigne, Sadie Frost and Robert Ashworth.
Coogan referred to the settlement as "vindication".
The settlement came five years after the Alan Partridge star was awarded £40,000 in damages from News UK as a result of another phone hacking case, that time brought against journalists working for the News of the World.
At the time, Coogan said, "I have never wanted to be famous as such; fame is a by-product of what I do. Personally, I like to keep myself private. I have never said I am a paragon of virtue, a model of morality. I simply do what I do."
"Aspects of my personal life and, my professional work, do not meet the approval of some tabloid editors and proprietors. But I don't believe that gives them the right to hack my voicemail, intrude into my privacy or the privacy of people who know me or print damaging lies."
Coogan told Lord Justice Leveson's 2011 inquiry into press standards that he'd caught journalists searching through his bins and that he believed his personal details were in the notebook of disgraced News of the World investigator Glenn Mulcaire.
He then obtained a subpoena for the details in Mulcaire's notebook, which listed amounts and times that Coogan had drawn from cash machines, how he had paid hotel bills and phone numbers of his then-girlfriend.
As of 1200 BST, the announcement had done nothing to hurt Trinity Mirror shares, climbing up 0.32% to 86.32p.