In a big win for Prince Harry in his fight for privacy against the royals-obsessed British media tabloids, a U.K. judge has ruled in favor of the Prince in the heavily scrutinized phone hacking case.

The London court found that there was enough proof that Mirror Group Newspapers — owners of several tabloid publications that hounded Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle during their years in Britain — had engaged in unlawful information gathering, including phone hacking, in its story gathering maneuvers for Prince Harry and the other plaintiffs in the suit.

Specifically, Judge Timothy Fancourt ruled that of the 33 articles submitted by Prince Harry's legal team as evidence of phone hacking, information in 15 of those articles presented were deemed sufficient evidence of being unlawfully gathered by journalists.

As compensation, Harry was awarded 140,600 pounds — roughly $180,000 — in damages. The judge also declared that it appeared Harry’s personal phone was targeted between 2004 and 2009.

This lawsuit is just one of several that Harry and Meghan have brought against England's tabloid press over privacy rights.

Prince Harry felt so strongly about the matter that he was willing to be the first senior member of the British royal family to take the stand and testify since the 19th century, according to the New York Times.

His lawyer released a statement on Harry's behalf after the ruling: “I have been told that slaying dragons will get you burned,” the quote began, “but in light of today's victory and the importance of doing what is needed for a free and honest press, it is a worthwhile price to pay.”

The verdict may also mean big changes for Britain's notoriously unscrupulous tabloid newspapers, who are now under pressure to face more accountability for their reporting tactics.

This has been a personal source of pain for Prince Harry ever since his mother, Princess Diana, was killed after trying to speed away from the paparazzi in 1997.

The ruling in the phone hacking scandal offers Prince Harry a degree of validation in his pursuit of justice and privacy.