Murdoch hacking case: UK singer gets 600,000 pounds as damages

Singer Charlotte Church, who had sued Rupert Murdoch's now defunct News of the World for hacking her phone, today received 600,000 pounds as damages and costs under a settlement at the High Court here.

The 26-year-old singer and her parents have agreed damages and costs of 600,000 pounds with News Group Newspapers, BBC reported.

The settlement includes 300,000 pounds in legal costs and a public apology.

Church said she was "sickened and disgusted" by what she discovered during her legal action against News International over phone hacking.

The singer's phone was hacked when she was 16 years old. The court agreed that 33 articles in the paper had been due to her family's voicemails being hacked, the report said.

Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Church said it was an "important day" for her and her family.

"I brought this legal claim with my parents, as many others have done, because we wanted to find out the truth about what this newspaper group had done in the pursuit of stories about our family.

"What I have discovered as the litigation has gone on has sickened and disgusted me," she said.

Church's phone was hacked in 2002 and journalists also placed her under surveillance and gained access to her medical records, the report said.

She said she had discovered that, despite an apology she believed the paper was "not truly sorry, only sorry they got caught".

Church said she was now planning to focus on helping the criminal investigation and Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry into media ethics, it said.