A journalist, novelist and campaigner was one of the phone-hacking victims who have settled with News Group Newspapers today.

Joan Smith, whose phone was hacked and who was put under surveillance while she was MP Denis MacShane's partner, received £27,500 in damages plus costs.

Smith was present as her statement was read in court by her solicitor, Tamsin Allen, from Bindmans LLP. It said she had become the subject of “intense media scrutiny and intrusion” between 2004 and 2010. Smith was writing for a News International title, the Times, at the time.

She told Hacked Off: “I really went because I wanted to hear News International’s apology, I wanted to hear the apology to me personally.

“This has now been going on for quite a long time. To begin with it looked like they would stick to rogue reporter defence and the fact they’ve finally come clean about what happened seemed important".

Smith said the settlements were “an incredibly significant moment” in the phone hacking saga.

She said: “It was a snapshot of what was going on in that newsroom, the absolutely staggering nature of surveillance and its impact on the victims. People accusing their families and employees of giving information about them to a national newspaper is distressing.

“The fact that somebody stood up and had to make 18 apologies was incredibly significant.”

She said the number of cases settled was “a good thing”.

She added: “The amounts awarded are relatively high. That actually reflects the gravity of what went on at now people will have to think about why they are paying out all this money”.

Smith told the Lord Justice Leveson she was ‘collateral damage” in the News of the World’s quest for information about her former partner, MacShane, when she gave evidence to his inquiry last year.

The press became particularly interested in MacShane following the sudden death of his daughter in a skydiving accident in 2004.

Legal proceedings against News Group Newspapers and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were launched by Smith in September 2011, on the grounds of harassment, breach of confidence and misuse of private information. News Group assured her they would continue searching documents in order to uncover the extent of intrusion, and offered an apology.

Smith was contacted by Operation Weeting earlier that year and invited to view Mulcaire’s records. She told the Leveson Inquiry he was "an obsessive note taker" and had collected family phone numbers and details of travel arrangements.

She said she was worried about a potential backlash against the victims.

She said: “We’ve got nothing to apologise for, we’re the victims here”.

Smith described her experience as a Leveson witness as difficult.

She said: “It’s something I don’t like because although I’m a columnist, I don’t endlessly write about my private life. One of the ironies of this process is you have to talk about very private things in public. I just gritted my teeth and did it”.