Prince Harry has lost his privacy case against the Daily Mail publishers.
In 2022, the Duke of Sussex was one of several household names who had filed lawsuits against the publishers, claiming to be a victim of unlawful information gathering. Other names included Elton John, his husband David Furnish, Sadie Frost, Elizabeth Hurley, as well as Doreen Lawrence and Sir Simon Hughes.
This group claimed that along with hacking their phones, reporters at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday had also tapped landlines and bugged houses and cars. Publisher Associated Newspapers have always denied these claims.
These allegations were also dismissed in court, ruling that the claimants had failed to prove these claims.
In his ruling, Judge Nicklin said these claims are “open to criticism”, for the way that their case was presented, referring to an allegation that Associated employees had lied during the Leveson Inquiry, the review of the British press culture and practices, led by UK judges.
In his judgement, Judge Nicklin wrote: “The allegations were extremely serious. Yet… they were not consistently anchored to identified statements which were put to the relevant witness as deliberate falsehoods".
“In significant respects the case shifted from the pleaded allegation of lies to broader criticisms of Associated’s inquiries, disclosure and corporate response to the Leveson Inquiry. This is not how allegations of this seriousness should be advanced".
Referring to Prince Harry's evidence in court, the judge said: “In assessing Prince Harry’s evidence overall, it was apparent that he wished the Court to understand the personal impact of the matters in issue. At times, this led him beyond giving factual evidence into advancing arguments on the issues…Overall, this did not affect the quality of Prince Harry’s evidence, which I accept. As with each of the Claimants, Prince Harry has limited evidence to give on the contentious matters in dispute".
Following this ruling, a spokesperson for Associated said: “This is a magnificent vindication of the Daily Mail’s journalism. The reputations of our decent and hard-working journalists were terribly impugned, and today they have been exonerated. As the judgment clearly shows, every single article was legitimately sourced. We will look to resolve outstanding issues, including the recovery of the costs we have incurred while defending ourselves against this egregious litigation".
Prior to this, Prince Harry had sued Mirror Group Newspapers for unlawful gathering of information, where he partially won before settling. He also sued News Group Newspapers over the same issue, setting out of court.
2022 also saw him sue Associated Newspapers for libel over an article regarding his lawsuit against the Government. The royal later withdrew this libel claim against Associated, and lost his case against the Government over his security arrangements.
In March this year, he was sued by Sentebale, the charity he founded for defamation, following a publicised row with the chair, Sophie Chandauka.
At present, Prince Harry is in the UK this week for the one year countdown to the Invictus Games, a sports tournament he created for injured veterans. This takes place in Birmingham next year.
