High Court dismisses claims by Duke of Sussex, Sir Elton John, Baroness Lawrence and others, with huge legal costs now looming
PRINCE HARRY, Sir Elton John, Baroness Lawrence and four other public figures have lost a major High Court privacy battle against the publisher of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and MailOnline.
In a 436-page judgment handed down on Tuesday (July 7), Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed all claims brought against Associated Newspapers Limited.
The case was brought by Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, Elizabeth Hurley, Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, and Sadie Frost Law.
They alleged that Associated Newspapers had obtained private or confidential information through unlawful methods, including phone hacking, listening to calls, deception, and the use of private investigators.
The claimants said information gathered in this way was used to help prepare articles published in the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and MailOnline over a period stretching from the late 1990s to 2015.
Associated Newspapers denied the allegations.
After a lengthy trial earlier this year, the judge found that the claimants had not proved their case.
He said the court had to examine the evidence article by article, rather than deciding the case on broad allegations about tabloid culture or historic wrongdoing elsewhere in the newspaper industry.
The judgment examined dozens of stories and incidents, including articles about Prince Harry’s private life, Elizabeth Hurley’s family life, Sir Elton John and David Furnish, Sadie Frost Law, and Baroness Lawrence’s long campaign following the racist murder of her son Stephen Lawrence.
Mr Justice Nicklin said that while the use of private investigators could raise serious questions, it did not automatically prove unlawful information gathering.
He also accepted that some information could have come from public sources, previous reporting, ordinary journalistic contacts, publicists or confidential sources.
A central plank of the claimants’ case was an allegation that senior Associated figures had misled the Leveson Inquiry. The claimants described this as the “Leveson Lies”.
The judge rejected that allegation.
He found that the claimants had not proved that Paul Dacre, Elizabeth Hartley or Stephen Wright gave evidence to Leveson which they knew to be untrue.
The judge said Associated’s response to Leveson was not necessarily beyond criticism, but that was different from proving deliberate falsehoods.
He was also critical of the way the allegation had been pursued, saying that claims of such seriousness must be clearly tied to specific statements and properly put to witnesses.
The ruling is a major victory for Associated Newspapers and a significant setback for the Duke of Sussex, who has brought a series of legal actions against sections of the British press.
The financial consequences could also be substantial.
Associated Newspapers is expected to seek to recover its costs. Some reports have put the overall legal bill at more than £50m, although the final recoverable figure will be a matter for the court and may be lower.
A previous costs judgment showed that the claimants had taken out After The Event insurance, commonly known as ATE insurance. That type of policy is designed to protect a claimant against having to pay the other side’s legal costs if they lose.
The court was told the claimants had individual ATE policies of £2.35m each, giving total cover of £14.1m.
However, the final costs position has not yet been decided. A further hearing has been fixed for July 29 and 30, when the parties are expected to deal with the consequences of the judgment, including any dispute over costs.
For readers in Wales, the case is important because it goes to the heart of media law, privacy and the limits of evidence in claims against powerful publishers.
The judgment does not say that unlawful tabloid practices never happened. Instead, it says that these claimants failed to prove these claims against this publisher on the evidence before the court.
Mr Justice Nicklin concluded: “Each of the Claimants’ claims is dismissed.”
Associated Newspapers welcomed the ruling. The claimants are reported to be considering their next steps.
