Prince Harry appeared visibly shaken and elicited sympathy from observers after losing a landmark legal battle against the publisher of the Daily Mail. The Duke of Sussex and six other claimants had sued Associated Newspapers, alleging unlawful information gathering including phone hacking. However, Judge Mr Justice Nicklin ruled that the claimants failed to prove the allegations, stating they could not rely on 'suspicion, even where understandable'.
Ruling Delivered Moments Before Invictus Speech
The ruling, years in the making and reportedly costing £50 million, came just before Prince Harry was scheduled to deliver a speech for the Invictus Games. He arrived at the venue earlier than expected to consult with advisors about the 436-page judgment. Hannah Furness, Royal Editor for The Telegraph, who attended the speech, said she 'felt a lot of sympathy for him'.
'He looked very shaken, very down. He looked gutted, actually,' Furness said on The Telegraph's Daily T podcast. 'It was loss after loss after loss. 97 claims all lost.'
Pressure of Public Performance
About 200 Invictus delegates, advisors, and press watched as the judgment dropped before Harry delivered a six-minute speech. Furness noted that he 'tried very hard to hold it together' and made no comment about the legal ruling, but 'he was swallowing hard, looking around, went through his jokes, but he looked very flat'.
During his evidence in January, Harry had appeared on the verge of tears, telling the High Court that the publisher 'made my wife's life an absolute misery' and continued to 'come after me'. He disputed 14 articles published between 2001 and 2013.
Joint Statement Criticizing Ruling
After the ruling and his Invictus speech, Prince Harry and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, the Labour peer and mother of Stephen Lawrence, issued a joint statement calling the ruling a 'complete and obvious whitewash'. They said, 'We came to court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither.'
A spokesperson for Associated Newspapers described the judgment as an 'overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists'.
