Phone hacking: Mirror Group disputes compensation amounts

Clockwise from top left: Alan Yentob, Sadie Frost, Paul Gascoigne, Lucy Taggart, Robert Ashworth, Lauren Alcorn, Shane Richie, Shobna Gulati

Damages awarded to eight victims of phone hacking were "out of all proportion" to the harm done to them, Mirror Group Newspapers has said.

The firm is appealing against a ruling that it must pay almost £1.25m in total to victims including actor Shane Richie and ex-footballer Paul Gascoigne.

Awarding the compensation in May, Mr Justice Mann said the invasions of privacy were "serious" and "prolonged".

The Mirror Group agrees it should pay but disputes the amounts.

Lord Pannick QC, representing the company, told the Court of Appeal the compensation awards were "manifestly excessive".

He repeated the Mirror Group's apology for hacking into people's phones to listen to voicemail messages, calling the practice "unlawful and plainly inexcusable".

But he said: "The sums awarded in this case are out of all proportion to the gravity of the harm done, the damage caused, when consideration is given - as we say it must be - to the established scale of damages for personal injuries."

He quoted guidelines for the loss of an eye, impotence in a young man or infertility in a young woman - all of which attracted less in damages than the awards made to the hacking victims.

Actress Sadie Frost won the largest compensation payment - £260,250.

Richie, Gascoigne, Alan Yentob, Lucy Taggart, Robert Ashworth, Lauren Alcorn and Shobna Gulati were awarded between £72,500 and £201,250.

All the victims except Mr Yentob had stories about their private lives published in Mirror Group titles. In March Mr Yentob told the High Court he felt "violated on a truly massive scale" by journalists who hacked his phone.

The compensation to each exceeded the previous record for a UK privacy case - the £60,000 the News of the World was ordered to pay former Formula 1 boss Max Mosley in 2008.

Lord Pannick revealed that 70 more phone-hacking cases have been launched against the Mirror Group, and another 50 victims have told the company they intend to sue.