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 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”, saying stories were sourced legitimately. After the verdict, Paul Dacre said the case was a “conspiracy” orchestrated to “destroy a paper”. ANL will try to recover its costs, with a spokesperson calling the verdict “a magnificent vindication of the Daily Mail’s journalism”.
The claimants’ case was seriously damaged after a key witness, private investigator Gavin Burrows, said his witness statement was a forgery. The judge said Burrows was “comprehensively undermined” as a witness and there was no independent corroboration.
