Daily Mail v Prince Harry: The failed claims brought by the duke and other stars

Daily Mail v Prince Harry: The failed claims brought by the duke and other stars A high court judge dismissed a string of claims brought by the Duke of Sussex and six other celebrities against the publisher of the Daily Mail - Bookmark - CommentsGo to comments The Duke of Sussex and six other prominent public figures have lost a major court case accusing the publisher of the Daily Mail of unlawful information gathering. The claimants, which included Sir Elton John and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, had alleged Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) carried out or commissioned unlawful activities such as landline tapping, hiring private investigators to place listening devices inside cars or “blagging” private records. ANL strongly denied the claims in a high-profile 45-day High Court trial, where Harry and the other celebrity claimants gave evidence. In a 436-page judgment on Tuesday, Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed all claims brought against ANL, which related to 57 stories – most of which were published between 1997 and 2015. The judge said that none of the group had proven their allegations of unlawful information gathering. The burden of proof is lower in the civil courts and claims must be proven on the balance of probability to be successful. In a statement following the ruling, ANL said the decisions was an “overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists, and for a free press generally”. “As the judgment clearly shows, every single article was legitimately sourced,” they said, adding that the case had “wasted so much valuable court time and more than £50 million in legal costs”. Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex claimed 14 articles published by ANL were based on unlawful information gathering. The stories, his lawyers said, were written between 2001 and 2013, and “focus primarily and in a highly intrusive and damaging way, on the relationships which he formed, or rather tried to form, during those years prior to meeting his now wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex”. During around two hours of cross-examination in January, an at-times tearful Harry said he could not complain about some of the 14 articles in his case at the time “because of the institution I was in”. He also said in his written evidence that “knowingly false” information was added to stories to “put me off the scent”, to conceal unlawful methods, including voicemail interception. ANL argued that Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday journalists had provided a “compelling account of a pattern of legitimate sourcing of articles”, including friends and “leaky” social circles, press officers and spokespersons, as well as previous reporting, freelance journalists and stories from other newspapers and news agencies. Mr Justice Nicklin said he accepted the evidence given by the Duke, adding that it was apparent he wished the court to understand the “personal impact” of his complaint. However he found the royal had “limited evidence to give” on the contentious matters in dispute. Baroness Doreen Lawrence Baroness Doreen Lawrence, whose son Stephen, 18, was murdered in a notorious racist attack in Eltham, south east London, in 1993, accused the Daily Mail of “pretending” to support her family. Under then-editor Paul Dacre, the Mail campaigned to bring Mr Lawrence’s alleged killers to justice. On the front page of their 14 February 1997 edition, the newspaper labelled five men as “murderers” and challenged them to sue for libel if they were wrong. Years later, two were found guilty of being involved in the attack and sentenced to life imprisonment. The High Court was told that Baroness Lawrence, who was made a peer in the House of Lords in 2013, was “alerted” to a potential legal claim by a text from Harry. Her claim related to five articles that were published between 1997 and 2007, for which her lawyers alleged she was “extensively targeted” by private investigators and ANL. However her claims were dismissed, with the judge concluding she had not proved that journalists had used unlawful information gathering to write the stories. Sir Elton John and David Furnish Sir Elton John accused the publication of mounting an “invasion” into his privacy while his husband David Furnish accused its journalists of being “actively homophobic”. They alleged that 10 articles about them between 2002 and 2015 published by ANL used unlawfully obtained medical information and landline tapping, which the publisher strongly denied. Giving evidence via video link, Sir Elton said the couple’s claim included “the most horrendous things in the world that you can ever suffer from a privacy point of view”. The couple alleged the Daily Mail had blagged private information surrounding the birth of their son Zachary by surrogate and were disturbed to learn the paper had obtained details of his birth certificate. Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed their claim that this was obtained using deception, finding that there was contemporaneous email evidence supporting ANL’s defence that the details were provided to a journalist over the phone by the registrar’s office in Los Angeles. In his ruling, the judge said: “It is not sufficient simply to assert that such a disclosure is ‘inherently implausible’. The court requires evidence, not speculation.” Sir Simon Hughes The former Liberal Democrat MP, who represented Bermondsey and Old Southwark for 32-years, told the court that he found it “distressing” that the publisher allegedly targeted him using “unlawful means” for “their own profit”. His claim did not relate to any published articles, but instead concerned an alleged incident of unlawful information gathering (UIG), which is said to have involved a Mail on Sunday journalist. The qualified barrister, who also stood as the Lib Dem candidate for Mayor of London in 2004 and was elected deputy leader of the party in 2010, claimed he became a target for the tabloids after being outed as gay by The Sun in 2006. However, Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed the claim, concluding he had not proved that the journalist knew that information in emails he had received was the product of voicemail interception or other unlawful information gathering. Elizabeth Hurley Ms Hurley's claim related to 15 articles published between 2002 and 2011, through which she alleged ANL "wilfully exploited my stolen information using its arsenal of illegal means". Five of them were about her son Damian Hurley and his late father, film producer Steve Bing. She claimed that private investigators working for the Daily Mail bugged her landline and placed microphones on her home windows to get stories in what she described as a "brutal invasion of privacy". The mother-of-one, best known for starring in the Austin Powers and Bedazzled films, cried several times as she gave evidence in the case. Mr Justice Nicklin said he accepted her evidence, which she gave in a “clear and direct manner”, but added: “As with each of the claimants, she has limited evidence to give on the contentious matters in dispute.” Sadie Frost In her case against ANL, Ms Frost alleged she suffered invasions of her privacy through phone hacking and the tapping of her ex-husband Jude Law’s landline when he was discussing details of their divorce settlement. Her claim related to 11 articles and two "episodes" of alleged unlawful information gathering for articles that were not published, including one about her pregnancy. Giving evidence, she claimed there was a “price on my head” for articles about her in the Daily Mail. Former diary editor for the Mail on Sunday Katie Nicholl also denied blagging the medical information of Ms Frost for an unpublished story about the actress’s ectopic pregnancy in 2003. In his ruling, Mr Justice Nicklin said a draft version of the story, which was never published, and information recorded in the journalist’s notepad was “highly private, deeply intrusive and of an intensely sensitive medical character”. However, he concluded Ms Frost had failed to prove that the information had been sourced illegally. In evidence, Ms Nicholl told the court she had a tip from a freelance journalist “with a very good source”. Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Comments