Prince Harry has just been dealt a massive legal defeat in one of the biggest courtroom battles of his ongoing fight against the British tabloid press.
On Tuesday, the Duke of Sussex lost his years-long lawsuit against Associated Newspapers Limited after a judge dismissed ALL of the claims brought by Harry and six other high-profile figures. Per reports out today, the court said the seven claimants failed to prove allegations that the publisher unlawfully gathered private information for DM and Mail on Sunday stories through methods such as phone hacking, deception, the use of private investigators, and corrupt payments.
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The decision represents a significant setback for the royal, who has spent years making media accountability one of the defining causes of his public life.
In case y’all don’t recall the landscape here, Harry wasn’t alone in the lawsuit. The group of claimants also included famous names such as Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley, and Sadie Frost, all of whom alleged that stories published in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday between the 1990s and 2011 relied on information obtained through unlawful means.
But after a lengthy 46-day trial, Mr. Justice Matthew Nicklin ultimately concluded that the evidence presented in court did NOT establish that the articles in question were the result of illegal information gathering. Instead, the judge determined that suspicion alone was not enough to support the claims, resulting in the entire case being dismissed. Another hearing is scheduled for the very end of July to address any remaining issues related to the judgment.
Meanwhile, Associated Newspapers Limited wasted no time celebrating the outcome. In a statement published to DailyMail.com on Tuesday, the company described the ruling as:
“[An] overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists, and for a free press generally.”
The publisher also added:
“Associated Newspapers thanks Mr. Justice Nicklin for the patience and wisdom he has displayed throughout this misguided legal action, which has wasted so much valuable court time and more than £50m in legal costs. We will look to resolve outstanding issues, including the recovery of the costs we have incurred while defending ourselves against this egregious litigation.”
Despite the disappointing result, this isn’t the only legal battle Harry has fought against Britain’s tabloids — and to be fair to Harry, his campaign has included some notable victories and settlements over the years.
Meghan Markle famously won her privacy case against the Mail on Sunday over the publication of her private letter to her father, receiving symbolic damages of £1. Harry also reached a major settlement with the publisher of The Sun last January, which reportedly included an eight-figure payment and a public apology acknowledging unlawful conduct.
Still, this latest loss clearly stings. The ruling arrived while Harry was in London attending an event connected to the Invictus Games, and so he was on hand in the area to speak about it.
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And sure enough, just hours after the ruling was handed down, Harry released a joint statement with fellow claimant Baroness Doreen Lawrence, making it abundantly clear they strongly disagree with the court’s conclusions.
The pair said:
“We came to Court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither. This judgment represents a complete reversal of the position which previous Judges have taken in relation to the hacking claims successfully brought against both News Group Newspapers and Mirror Group Newspapers (who were represented by, at the time, the Judge who made this decision). Generic findings about various private investigators that were held by the Courts in these parallel claims to have carried out unlawful activity at the very same time in relation to similar stories and well-known individuals have been wholly ignored. The fact that this Court has chosen to dismiss them represents an inconsistency which is hard to understand or reconcile with common sense, or the evidence heard in the courtroom itself.”
Ummmmm that portion of their quote in parentheses is a record scratch! The other newspaper groups were previously repped by Justice Nicklin — at that time, working as a barrister — who is now presiding as the judge over this case! Yikes!
Harry and the Baroness didn’t stop there, either. They added:
“It is a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected. However, the lengths to which the Court has gone to exonerate the Mail is as shocking as it is totally unwarranted. When the Court says there is not sufficient evidence of wrongdoing, despite the documents showing otherwise, then one does wonder how justice was ever going to be achieved.”
Harry and Baroness Lawrence also pointed to what they believe were specific examples supporting their case, saying:
“One need not look past when a private investigator the Mail used actually admitted on tape to having unlawfully blagged Baroness Lawrence, or when a journalist recorded the name of the private investigators she used to find out about highly sensitive medical information (that even the Mail was too worried to publish) or when another private investigator emailed one of the journalists with the actual British Airways seat number and ticketing details for a young girl simply visiting her boyfriend in return for payment.”
They wrapped up their response with one final criticism of the ruling:
“It feels here like one rule for the newspapers and another for the claimants. While the Claimants presented evidence, Mail journalists simply gave denials, and the Court chose uncritically to believe them, even in the face of inconsistencies, contradictions and blatant untruths that were obvious to neutral observers in Court when compared to the documents. We presented to the Court evidence which we believed was compelling at the time and remains so now. We would like to thank our legal team for all their hard work and all the witnesses who were brave enough to come forward in the pursuit of justice.”
Wow…
And so, like we referenced up top, this marks another dramatic chapter in Harry’s long-running battle with Britain’s tabloid media — and this time around, Harry took a massive L.
It remains to be seen whether this ruling truly closes the book on one of the Duke’s biggest legal crusades. Based on the statements released Tuesday, it’s clear Harry believes the fight for accountability is far from over, though it’s unclear if there’s anything to be done about it.
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