In November 2005, Prince William, then 23 and preparing to join the army, hurt his knee. It was a minor injury, and only a small number of people knew about it. He had mentioned it to a handful of aides and friends, mostly in phone messages.
Then, a short item about the injury appeared in the News of the World, written by the newspaper’s royal editor, Clive Goodman. To most readers, it was a tiny story. But inside the palace, it set alarm bells ringing.
William’s aides could not understand how the newspaper had found out. They began to suspect that someone was listening to their voicemail messages. The royal household contacted the Metropolitan Police.
Detectives investigated and found that the voicemail messages of royal aides had been accessed without permission. On 8 August 2006, police arrested Clive Goodman and a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, who had been working for the newspaper.
In January 2007, both men pleaded guilty and were jailed. Goodman was sentenced to four months and Mulcaire to six months. The newspaper’s editor, Andy Coulson, resigned, although he said he had not known about the hacking.
At the time, the newspaper insisted it was the work of one rogue reporter. But that claim did not last. Over the following years, journalists and lawyers uncovered evidence that phone hacking had been far more widespread, with many celebrities, politicians and ordinary people targeted.
In July 2011, it was revealed that the phone of a murdered schoolgirl had been hacked. Public outrage was enormous. Within days, the News of the World, which had been published for 168 years, was closed down. A major public inquiry into the culture and ethics of the press followed.
For the royal family, the scandal confirmed long-held fears about how far some newspapers would go. Years later, Prince Harry took his own legal action against tabloid publishers over unlawful information gathering, winning a major case in 2023 and later securing an apology in another.
It all began with a prince’s sore knee, and a small story that only a few people should have been able to write.