Heather Mills has said she and 90 other people have been awarded the highest media libel settlement in British legal history, following a claim against the UK's News of the World over phone hacking.

The businesswoman and former wife of Paul McCartney settled her claim against News Group Newspapers (NGN), the ex-publisher of the newspaper, in February for an undisclosed sum.

On Monday, Ms Mills and her sister Fiona Mills received an apology at a hearing at London's High Court.

Ben Silverstone, for NGN, said: "The defendant is here today, through me, to offer its sincere apologies to Ms Heather Mills and Ms Fiona Mills for the distress caused to them by the invasion of their privacy by individuals working for or on behalf of the News of the World.

"The defendant accepts that such activity should never have taken place and that it had no right to intrude into the private lives of Ms Heather Mills or Fiona Mills in this way."

Reading from a prepared statement following the hearing, Ms Mills said she and her sister had been the victims of a "criminal, targeted smear campaign waged against us by News Group Newspapers - including hacking, invasion of privacy, and the publication of countless falsehoods and lies between 1999 and 2010".

She added: "My motivation to win this decade-long fight stemmed from a desire to obtain justice, not only for my family, my charities and myself, but for the thousands of innocent members of the public who, like me, have suffered similar ignominious, criminal treatment at the hands of one of the world's most powerful media groups."

When asked if this was the end of her litigation against NGN, she replied: "This is the end for now - unless anything else pops up."

The sisters' claims were settled on the basis that NGN made no admission of liability in relation to their allegations of voicemail interception or other unlawful information gathering at The Sun.