When Prince Harry and others accused the Daily Mail of using unlawful methods to source stories, the world was left shocked. The Duke of Sussex – along with Doreen Lawrence, the mother of the murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence; the singer Elton John and his husband, David Furnish; the actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost; and the former Liberal Democrat minister Simon Hughes had launched a multimillion-pound case against Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), which publishes the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline.The six parties had accused the publisher of “clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information-gathering” over several years. They had alleged that the paper placed bugs in people’s cars and homes, listening to calls that were made, illicitly accessing people’s bank accounts and making corrupt payments to the police. Dozens of journalists and private investigators were named in the claims.The group presented the court with 55 articles published between 1997 and 2015, and three incidents that did not lead to articles, which they claimed demonstrated unlawful information-gathering in 97 separate allegations.The trial began in January at London’s High Court. In court, Harry became visibly emotional as he described his confrontation with Associated Newspapers, saying, “They continue to come after me, they have made my wife’s life an absolute misery.”While earlier, the plaintiffs were looking ahead to a victory, a judge’s ruling now has them looking forward to a £50 million legal bill. In the ruling that is likely to signal an end to new litigation relating to the phone-hacking scandal era, the high court has dismissed all of the group’s claims. It has been stated that the claimants had not proved that any information had been obtained unlawfully.The 436-page written verdict from 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. Nicklin also dismissed suggestions that senior figures at the Mail, including its former editor Paul Dacre had lied to the 2011-12 Leveson inquiry into press ethics, where Dacre said no hacking took place at the paper.Harry and Lawrence said the verdict was a “complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected.” “When the court says there is not sufficient evidence of wrongdoing … then one does wonder how justice was ever going to be achieved,” a joint statement read.Whereas ANL’s legal team described the claims as “lurid” and “preposterous.” It said in each instance, stories were sourced legitimately from press officers, previous articles or the “leaky” social circles of celebrities. Dacre further claimed the case was a “conspiracy” orchestrated by press regulation campaigners to “destroy a paper.” He said he would “never be able to comprehend” why Lawrence joined the case, after the Mail had “campaigned for justice for her son for over two decades.“He also said he had sympathy for Harry, whom he described as a “confused and angry young man”. He said his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, had “liked the Mail. We were her paper.”The publishers added gratitude for the judge’s ruling and “for the patience and wisdom he has displayed throughout this misguided legal action which has wasted so much valuable court time and more than £50 million in legal costs.”The total costs will be determined in a hearing this month, and the judge could decide that the claimants are responsible for paying all of the expenses.
