Image: BBC

British singer Charlotte Church, the phone-hacking victim of News Group Newspapers (NGN), settled for a fee £600,000 in an out-of-court legal battle.

Speaking on why she decided to drop courtroom battle against the News of the World’s publishers, Welsh singer-songwriter said she apprehended that the ordeal would make her recall all the excruciating things the publication wrote about her and her family.

On an interview with The Independent she explains, News International’s lawyers were going to target my mother, putting her through repeated psychological evaluation and making her relive everything.

Outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Feb 27, 2012, Charlotte said she was ‘sickened and disgusted’ by News of the World’s trial strategy.

In the trail, Church’s lawyer told the court that the newspaper hacked Church’s voicemail messages repeatedly, and obtained her private medical information illegitimately. Her lawyer also told the judge that newspaper also unlawfully obtained details of her relationships with her family and friends.

Mike Brookes, the solicitor of Church family, told the court that the News of the World pressurised Church’s mother, Maria to give them an in-depth interview about her suicide attempt.

For four years between 2002 and 2006, the News of the World published around 33 articles on Charlotte Church and her family. From her first teenage boyfriend to her greedy mother, the newspaper covered everything about Charlotte.

News Group Newspapers has given a public apology to Church family, Charlotte but still feels that the publication is not really apologetic, saying that the publishers were ‘not truly sorry, only sorry they got caught.’