Prince Harry, the younger son of King Charles, and other high-profile British figures on Tuesday lost their privacy lawsuits against the Daily Mail’s publisher that had alleged widespread unlawful behaviour.
Singer Elton John and his Canadian husband, David Furnish, as well as actors Sadie Frost and Elizabeth Hurley were among the others suing the publisher. They alleged dozens of stories about them published by Associated Newspapers in the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday from the 1990s to 2011 were based on information that had been obtained unlawfully.
Judge Matthew Nicklin said in a summary of his ruling that the claimants had needed to prove that information published about them had been obtained unlawfully, but suspicion was not enough.
“The court rejected the argument that, simply because information was private, and because Associated could not positively explain how it had been sourced, the relevant article must have been unlawfully sourced,” the summary said.
Harry held back tears in the witness box in January as he said the Daily Mail had made his wife Meghan’s life “an absolute misery.”
In a statement released to British media outlets on Tuesday, Harry called the decision “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,” he said.
Associated Newspapers said the allegations were smears and the claims against it were dismissed in their entirety on Tuesday, in what the publisher called “an overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists.”
Split verdicts with tabloids
The case was the final outstanding one in a series of lawsuits Harry had filed accusing tabloid publishers of using unlawful tactics.
He referenced the partial victories he got in some of those cases in his lengthy statement on Tuesday, writing that, “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.”
Harry was previously awarded 140,600 pounds (about $240,430 Cdn) after the High Court ruled he had been a victim of “modest” phone-hacking and other unlawful information gathering by journalists at Britain’s Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People.
In 2023, Harry became the first British royal to give evidence at a trial in 130 years, when he testified as part of the case.
Prince Harry’s upcoming trip to the U.K. won’t include a stay at Buckingham Palace, but why his accommodation is changing remains unclear. The King’s son is returning home to promote the Invictus Games.
In the other major case, the Rupert Murdoch-led News Group in the U.K. offered a “full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex” for “the phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators instructed by them.”
Harry alleged News Groups Newspapers (NGN) unlawfully obtained private information about him from 1996 to 2011.
The court had earlier rejected an allegation made in a court filing that Murdoch’s newspaper group had a secret deal with Buckingham Palace to block royals from filing such lawsuits.
Harry admitted in a British documentary that the crusade against the tabloids had been “part of a rift” with members of the Royal family.
King Charles opposed the litigation, Harry has said in legal filings.
Harry has long spoken out about his anger about press intrusion, which he blames for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in 1997 when the car she was riding in crashed as it sped away from paparazzi in Paris.
John, too, has faced off with the British tabloids, in legal battles dating back to the 1980s. In 2006, the Daily Mail agreed to pay the singer libel damages and legal costs due to a false report regarding a fundraising event.
Furnish and John’s case in this instance relates to 10 articles published between 2002 and 2015, including a 2007 story in the Mail about a concert to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana.
Furnish, from Toronto, said in testimony earlier this year that the Mail titles had been “actively homophobic” about their relationship.
Former Daily Mail editor slams Harry
Other claimants included former Liberal Democratic MP Simon Hughes and Doreen Lawrence, who became an anti-racism activist after the high-profile killing of her son, Stephen, in 1993.
Paul Dacre, the editor-in−chief of Associated and former Mail editor for 26 years, hailed the decision as “overwhelming vindication” and was scathing about Harry in a statement Tuesday.
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity,” he said in a statement.
“There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about his privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin.”
Harry is in the U.K., visiting London and Birmingham for a series of charity engagements, including for the Invictus Games, the Paralympic-style competition he founded for military veterans around the world. The event was held in British Columbia last year, and is scheduled to take place in Birmingham next year.
The visit sparked speculation as to whether the estranged royal would spend time with his father, who has rarely seen his grandchildren Archie and Lilibet, born to Harry’s American wife. The family is based in California.
In recent days it has emerged that Harry’s family wouldn’t be in the U.K. for the trip, and that the Duke of Sussex would not stay at Buckingham Palace during his visit.
Harry has also faced battles over his level of security while in the U.K. British authorities say Harry isn’t entitled to blanket protection because he is no longer a working member of the Royal family and that they assess his security on a case-by-case basis, just like any other celebrity.
