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. The High Court dismissed all the group’s claims, stating that the claimants had not proved that any information had been obtained unlawfully.
In a 436-page written verdict, 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. The judge also dismissed suggestions that senior figures at the Mail, including former editor Paul Dacre, had lied to the Leveson inquiry.
The Duke of Sussex, along with Doreen Lawrence, Elton John and his husband David Furnish, Elizabeth Hurley, Sadie Frost, and Simon Hughes, launched the multimillion-pound case against Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL). They accused the publisher of “clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information-gathering” over several years.
ANL’s legal team described the claims as “lurid” and “preposterous”, stating that stories were sourced legitimately from press officers, previous articles, or the “leaky” social circles of celebrities. The publisher will try to recover its costs from the case, calling the verdict “an overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists”.
The claimants’ case was seriously damaged after a key witness, private investigator Gavin Burrows, said his witness statement was a forgery and that he had not carried out illegal activity for the Mail titles. The judge noted Burrows was “comprehensively undermined” as a witness.
Prince Harry and Ms Lawrence said the verdict was a “complete and obvious whitewash”. ANL’s spokesperson said: “This is a magnificent vindication of the Daily Mail’s journalism.”
