The High Court in London has thrown out a lawsuit filed by Prince Harry and several others against Associated Newspapers (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail. The group had accused the paper of using illegal methods to dig up stories on them. According to reports, this loss could leave the plaintiffs facing a whopping £50 million in legal costs.
The case was brought by Harry, former Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, and five other people. They claimed that the Daily Mail and its Sunday edition had a long history of using shady tactics, like phone tapping, bugging landlines, hiring private detectives to plant listening devices, and even bribing police officers, to get their stories.
Prince Harry at a previous event. (File photo)
In a massive 436-page ruling, Justice Nicklin said the group simply couldn’t prove the stories they complained about were obtained illegally. The court also dismissed claims that former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre and other top editors had lied under oath.
Right after the verdict, Harry and another plaintiff, Doreen Lawrence, put out a joint statement. They called the ruling a “complete and obvious whitewash,” adding that it wasn’t exactly a shocker. They argued that if the court can’t see clear evidence of wrongdoing, people start to wonder if justice can ever really be served. ANL, on the other hand, celebrated it as a “resounding victory” for the paper and its journalists. They insisted all the stories were perfectly legal and vowed to go after the plaintiffs for their legal bills. Dacre also chimed in with a video statement, calling the whole lawsuit a conspiracy to “destroy a newspaper.” He said he could never understand why Lawrence joined the case, pointing out that the Daily Mail had spent over two decades campaigning for justice for her murdered son. He added that he felt sorry for Harry, describing him as a “confused and angry young man.”
British media are calling this Prince Harry’s last pending case against a newspaper group. He’s had mixed results before: he won a lawsuit against the Mirror Group, where the court found 15 out of 33 stories involved phone hacking or other illegal information gathering. Last year, he also settled with the publisher of The Sun, forcing them to issue a formal apology for invading his privacy and using private detectives to dig up dirt on him between 1996 and 2011. The whole phone hacking scandal blew up in 2011, leading to a massive investigation into the British press. It shut down the News of the World and cost several papers millions in payouts to victims. Many see this latest ruling as a sign that the latest round of lawsuits over the scandal is coming to a close.
