Why did Prince Harry sue the Daily Mail publisher? The Duke’s legal battle in full

Why did Prince Harry sue the Daily Mail publisher? The Duke’s legal battle in full The Duke of Sussex is among seven high-profile names taking legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited - Bookmark - CommentsGo to comments The Duke of Sussex has arrived in the UK as the judgment in his high-stakes legal action against the Daily Mail’s publisher is expected to be handed down on Tuesday. Prince Harry, alongside other prominent public figures including Sir Elton John, his husband David Furnish, and campaigner Baroness Doreen Lawrence, allege that Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) engaged in or commissioned unlawful activities. These allegedly included hiring private investigators to install listening devices in cars, "blagging" private records, and accessing private phone conversations. Politician Sir Simon Hughes, actress Sadie Frost, and Liz Hurley are also pursuing legal claims against the publisher, which has "vehemently" dismissed the "preposterous" allegations. Here, The Independent takes a look at why Prince Harry and others launched the legal action and how the legal fight has unfolded. 2022 October 6 Lawyers acting for the group, led by Prince Harry, issued legal claims against ANL. In a statement, the lawyers claimed there was “compelling and highly distressing evidence” that the group had been “the victims of abhorrent criminal activity and gross breaches of privacy”. ANL denied the allegations, describing them as “preposterous smears” and a “pre-planned and orchestrated attempt to drag the Mail titles into the phone-hacking scandal”. 2023 March 27 The duke, Ms Frost and Sir Elton attended a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, where ANL sought to have the cases against it thrown out without a trial. Harry’s appearance was believed to be the first time back in the UK since the late Queen’s funeral in September 2022. In written submissions for the hearing, Adrian Beltrami KC said on behalf of ANL that the legal actions had been brought too late and were “stale”, with the publisher denying that unlawful information gathering took place at its newspapers. He continued that the individuals had to prove they did not know earlier, or could not have discovered earlier, that they might have had a claim against ANL for alleged misuse of their private information. Barrister David Sherborne, for the group, told the hearing that the unlawful acts in the claim include illegally intercepting voicemail messages, listening to live landline calls and obtaining medical records. In written submissions, he said: “They range through a period from 1993 to 2011, even continuing beyond until 2018.” Mr Sherborne also told the four-day hearing that Sir Elton and Mr Furnish were “outraged” and “mortified” over allegations that the landline of their Windsor home was tapped. The barrister continued that Lady Lawrence believed the racist murder of her son, Stephen Lawrence, was “exploited” by the publisher. Lady Lawrence alleged that her bank accounts and phone bills were monitored, that she was subject to “covert electronic surveillance” and that “corrupt payments” were made to serving police officers for confidential information, including to those investigating her son’s killing. Mr Sherborne also said that the duke was “troubled that, through Associated’s unlawful acts, he was largely deprived of important aspects of his teenage years”. It also emerged at the hearing that an alleged confession and denial by private investigator Gavin Burrows over his role in the alleged unlawful information gathering were at the centre of the claims. In one statement, signed in August 2021, Mr Burrows claimed to have targeted “hundreds, possibly thousands of people” through voicemail hacking, landline tapping and accessing financial and medical information for a journalist at the Mail on Sunday. But in a later statement signed in March 2023, Mr Burrows said he wished “to make clear that I was never instructed or commissioned by (a journalist) or anyone at the Mail on Sunday or the Daily Mail to conduct unlawful information gathering on their behalf”. In the more recent statement, he said he was not commissioned to gather information unlawfully on Harry, Sir Elton, Mr Furnish, Ms Frost, or Ms Hurley. November 10 Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed ANL’s bid to have the claims thrown out without a trial, stating in a 95-page judgment that the publisher had “not been able to deliver a ‘knockout blow’ to the claims of any of these claimants”. He concluded that each of the seven people in the claim had a “real prospect” of demonstrating that ANL concealed “relevant facts” that would have allowed them to bring a claim against the publisher earlier. The duke, Lady Lawrence and Sir Elton said they were “delighted” by the ruling. ANL said they “look forward” to establishing in court that the group had made “lurid” claims. The publisher also welcomed the judge’s decision that unpublished ledgers given to the Leveson Inquiry into the practices and ethics of the British press could not be used without Governmental permission, calling it a “significant victory”. November 21 Lawyers for the group said they planned to ask ministers for permission to use the confidential Leveson Inquiry documents, with Mr Sherborne telling a hearing that there was “no rationale” for ANL refusing to provide the “plainly relevant” documents. Mr Beltrami said that ANL had rejected a request to hand over the ledgers and opposed a bid to ask a minister for access to them. 2024 March 1 The then-Conservative government announced it would vary the Leveson Inquiry’s restriction on providing the documents, allowing them to be disclosed “for the purpose of the legal proceedings”. In a statement, then-Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer and then-Home Secretary James Cleverly said the documents were “Daily Mail ledger cards recording payments to private investigators” and “The Mail on Sunday ledger cards recording payments to private investigators”. They continued that it was not “necessary in the public interest to withhold these documents from any disclosure or publication”. May 8 Dozens of journalists, including some national newspaper editors, were named in documents setting out the duke’s claim. They included about 70 current or former journalists, including the editor-in-chief of The Sun, Victoria Newton, the editor of The Times, Tony Gallagher, and the editor of the Mail on Sunday, David Dillon, who were named in relation to their time at ANL titles. Barristers for ANL said the duke’s case was “without foundation” and “an affront to the hard-working professional journalists whose reputations and integrity, as well as that of Associated itself, are wrongly traduced”. November 26 The High Court heard that Lady Lawrence was “alerted” to a potential legal claim by a text from Harry. In written submissions for a preliminary hearing, Catrin Evans KC, for ANL, said: “Litigation appears to have been contemplated by Baroness Lawrence almost immediately after the text was received by her.” 2025 July 11 Mr Justice Nicklin rules that Harry’s lawyers must hand over documents related to alleged payments made for evidence in his claim. Lawyers for ANL had asked the court at a hearing in May to order the group’s legal team to “search for and disclose any documents that relate to payments, royalties or inducements paid, provided or offered, or any demands or threats made, in order to obtain documents, information or other co-operation”. The judge ruled that documents that could “support a case that a witness has been paid or offered other inducement for their evidence, whether directly or indirectly” should be disclosed. He added: “In this case, the stance adopted by the claimants has been undermined by their inconsistent and incoherent approach to disclosure of documents relating to payments to potential witnesses and/or other inducements.” October 1 The High Court is told that details of the Prince of Wales’s 21st birthday party could have been “blagged” by a private investigator. Mr Sherborne told a hearing that an invoice dated from August 2003 was linked to a Daily Mail story from June that year, with “extensive” details of the event. He also claimed that a record from a private investigator allegedly shows a journalist commissioning him to provide a “mobile phone conversion” related to the Princess of Wales, as well as phone numbers from a “family and friends” list. Antony White KC, for ANL, said in written submissions that lawyers for the group of high-profile individuals had made “wholly unparticularised” allegations of unlawful information gathering that should not proceed to trial. October 10 Mr Justice Nicklin refused a bid to have the allegation related to the Princess of Wales added to the case, but allowed the group to use previous incidents of unlawful information gathering involving an ANL journalist while they were at a different paper in their claims. He also ruled that allegations that the publisher commissioned “burglaries to order” could not go to trial, as they “cannot assist in the fair resolution of the claimants’ claims”. November 11 Mr Burrows claimed his signature on a witness statement from August 2021 was a “forgery”, and that in September 2025, he told ANL that the contents of the earlier document were “substantially untrue”. He added that he had “never” carried out work for the Mail on Sunday or the Daily Mail, apart from one job relating to Sir Richard Branson that “did not involve any illegal activity”. November 26 Mr Justice Nicklin refuses a bid by the group’s lawyers to anonymise a witness known as “Berlin”, who was reportedly to give evidence in relation to Mr Burrows. Mr Sherborne had told the court that Berlin feared threats and violence if his identity was revealed, but the judge found there was not “clear and cogent evidence that an anonymity order is necessary”. The group’s lawyers said they planned to appeal against the ruling. 2026 January 15 A draft timetable for the case reveals that Harry is due to give evidence in the trial, which is due to start on January 19. January 19 The trial begins with Harry in attendance, as well as Ms Hurley, her son Damian Hurley, Sir Simon and Ms Frost. Opening the trial, Mr Sherborne says there was “clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information gathering at both the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday”. He adds: “They emphatically denied that there had been any unlawful activities at all. In short, they swore that they were a clean ship.” But he continued that ANL “ knew that these emphatic denials were not true, adding that they “knew they had skeletons in their closet”. In written submissions on behalf of ANL, Mr White said the allegations in the trial were different from claims made against News Group Newspapers (NGN) and Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) – publishers that Harry had previously brought legal action against. He also said: “The claimants have failed to establish that the most serious categories of alleged unlawful information gathering (UIG) – phone hacking and phone tapping – took place at Associated at all, and their allegation of burglary to order was struck out by the court. “The allegation that these practices were ‘habitual and widespread’ at Associated’s titles was simply untrue.” January 21 The duke tells the court in evidence that he did not complain about articles about him “because of the institution I was in” and that he felt “forced to perform” for reporters. He also denied a suggestion from Mr White that his social circles were “leaky”, adding that he became suspicious of someone: “I would have to cut contact with this person”. Towards the end of his evidence, Harry appeared on the verge of tears as he concluded his evidence, becoming emotional as he mentioned his wife, the Duchess of Sussex. Answering questions from Mr Sherborne, he said: “They continue to come after me; they have made my wife’s life an absolute misery, my Lord.” Asked how he felt about what ANL did to him, he said: “Not great. A repeat of the past. A recurring traumatic experience. “I have never believed that my life is open season to be commercialised by these people.” January 22 Hurley becomes emotional as she tells the court in her evidence that she felt “really mortified” that her son, Damian, would see some of the articles about her and his birth. She said: “Yet again, everyone’s privacy is being invaded in this terrible way, and I feel very helpless about that.” January 26 Frost claims that there was a “price on my head” for Daily Mail articles about her, and that she knew “100%” that information behind some of the articles had been “hacked from my voicemails”, as they “were word for word” from her messages. She also claims in her witness statement that she was unaware that she had a potential claim against the publisher until 2019, in response to Associated’s case that she had brought her claim too late. January 27 Sir Simon tells the court that he found it “distressing” that the Associated allegedly targeted him using “unlawful means” for the purposes of “their own profit”. In his witness statement, he adds: “The fact that they have remained completely unapologetic for this illegal behaviour is also distressing.” Sir Simon also denies being involved in “any conspiracy” to hide when he became aware of potentially having a claim against Associated, and denies Mr White’s suggestion that he was being “untruthful”. February 2 Lady Lawrence says that the Daily Mail “used me and my son to give them credibility for supporting a black family”, adding in a witness statement that she felt that she was a “victim again” by people “who I thought were my allies and friends”. February 5 Furnish calls the alleged stealing of information and tapping of his and Sir Elton’s landline an “abomination” in a witness statement, adding that this had enabled the Daily Mail to publish “countless judgmental and narrow-minded stories about us”. February 6 Sir Elton, giving his evidence via a video link, says his case against Associated “contains the most horrendous things in the world that you can ever suffer from a privacy point of view”. The musician also says the alleged “invasion” of his and his son’s medical information by the Daily Mail was “abhorrent and outside even the most basic standards of human decency”. February 10 Paul Dacre, the former editor of the Daily Mail, says in written evidence that it was “inconceivable” that anyone at the paper would have carried out the alleged activities, telling the court that the allegations were “preposterous”. He also says that Lady Lawrence’s claims against the paper were “bewildering and bitterly wounding to me personally”, adding: “The suggestion that we ran the campaign to generate exclusive headlines, sell newspapers and profit is sickeningly misplaced and bleakly cynical.” February 17 Former Daily Mail crime editor Stephen Wright says he is “completely devastated” by Lady Lawrence’s claims, calling an allegation of paying a private investigator to “blag” information about her “absolute nonsense”. He continued: “You are flogging a dead horse here, like many other dead horses in this case.” February 20 Former Mail on Sunday news editor Paul Henderson describes claims he instructed Mr Burrows to carry out “unlawful activities” as “absolutely incorrect”, adding: “I would never ask anybody to do anything like that and nothing like that was offered to me in my 50-year career in newspapers.” He also describes Mr Burrows’ disputed witness statement from 2021 as a “litany of lies”. March 12 Katie Nicholl, a former Mail on Sunday diary editor, says that not all of the duke’s friends were “tight-lipped” and says that she did not need to “sit at home” and use unlawful methods for gathering stories “because I had real contacts genuinely close to Prince Harry who were willing to speak to me”. March 23 Mr Burrows claims he did not write the 2021 statement and that does not recognise anything in it, adding that the signature was faked. He continues that he “never worked” for Associated and denies Mr Sherborne’s claim that he “switched sides out of revenge”. March 31 The trial concludes after 11 weeks. July 7 Mr Justice Nicklin gives his written judgment after the trial. Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Comments