Prince Harry and six other prominent figures are facing a legal bill of up to £50m after losing their case against the publisher of the Daily Mail over claims it used unlawful methods to source stories.
In an emphatic ruling that is likely to signal an end to new litigation relating to the phone-hacking scandal era, the high court dismissed all the group’s claims, stating that the claimants had not proved that any information had been obtained unlawfully. The 436-page written verdict from Mr Justice Nicklin said the court could not simply infer that a story had been obtained unlawfully if there remained a legitimate and realistic legal way in which it could have been sourced.
“Prince Harry and six others lose phone-hacking case against Daily Mail publisher, facing up to £50m legal bill.”
Nicklin also dismissed suggestions that senior figures at the Mail, including its former editor Paul Dacre, had lied to the 2011-12 Leveson inquiry into press ethics, where Dacre said no hacking took place at the paper.
The Duke of Sussex – along with Doreen Lawrence, the mother of the murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence; the singer Elton John and his husband, David Furnish; the actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost; and the former Liberal Democrat minister Simon Hughes – launched the multimillion-pound case against Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), which publishes the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline. They accused the publisher of “clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information-gathering” over several years. Dozens of journalists and private investigators were named in the group’s claims.
Harry and Lawrence said the verdict was a “complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected”. “When the court says there is not sufficient evidence of wrongdoing … then one does wonder how justice was ever going to be achieved,” a joint statement read.
ANL’s legal team described the claims as “lurid” and “preposterous”. In each instance, it said, stories were sourced legitimately from press officers, previous articles or the “leaky” social circles of celebrities. In a video statement following the verdict, Dacre said the case was a “conspiracy” orchestrated by press regulation campaigners to “destroy a paper”. He said he would “never be able…
The ruling, after an 11-week trial earlier this year, leaves the claimants not only defeated but liable for costs estimated at up to £50m – a sum that could reshape the financial futures of those involved, and that may deter any further legal challenges from the phone-hacking era.