Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) has issued a court apology to former Coronation Street actress Nikki Sanderson after admitting to using private investigators to acquire stories about her. The publisher’s barrister expressed their “unequivocal apologies” and assured that such actions wouldn’t occur once more. Sanderson is currently pursuing a High Court case in opposition to the newspapers, in search of damages for 37 articles published between 1999 and 2009.
The actress joined Coronation Street in 1999 at the age of 15, enjoying the character Candice Stowe. She rapidly became a subject of media interest, with crowds often gathering outdoors the studios and photographers trying to seize her image. Sanderson claims that the newspapers accessed her mobile phone voicemails via hacking and employed private investigators to collect personal details about her.
Andrew Green KC, representing the newspapers, stated that while a small number of data for calls from journalists to Sanderson’s cellphone numbers had been disclosed, there was no evidence to suggest her cellphone had been hacked. However, Elementary acknowledged that invoices for funds to personal investigators revealed 4 instances where the companies ELI and Avalon, both implicated in illegal information gathering, had been used to focus on Sanderson in 2004 and 2005.
The case can also be set to hear from different claimants, together with Coronation Street actor Michael Turner, known professionally as Michael Le Vell, and Fiona Wightman, comic Paul Whitehouse’s ex-wife. All claimants allege that illegal methods had been used to acquire data for tales and that senior executives should have been conscious of those tactics however failed to forestall them, which MGN denies..