Prince Harry has lost his high-profile privacy lawsuit against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. The UK High Court dismissed all claims of unlawful information gathering, ruling that Harry and other celebrity claimants failed to prove their allegations.
Other claimants in the case included actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, singer Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, former Liberal Democrat minister Sir Simon Hughes, and Baroness Lawrence. The court said all the claimants had failed to prove their claims.
The group alleged that as well as hacking their phones, journalists from the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday tapped landlines and bugged houses and cars. Publisher Associated Newspapers had strenuously denied the claims.
During the trial:
● Hurley was reduced to tears after describing the effect of the reporting of the paternity row about her son with the American businessman Steve Bing
● Prince Harry flew in to give evidence in person – his anger was plain to see as he argued there were 14 articles written using unlawfully gathered information about his private life
● Frost’s claims covered 11 articles including a draft story about Frost’s ectopic pregnancy
● Baroness Lawrence alleged five articles relied on information “stolen” about her and the investigation into her son Stephen’s murder
● On Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, barrister David Sherborne said details were published about the birth of their surrogate son – including his birth certificate before the couple had received their own copy
● For Sir Simon, the barrister said the Mail was “prepared to exploit his sexuality”, also citing a moment in 2006 when Hughes was “outed on the front page of the Sun”
Judge Nicklin noted in his judgment the claimants are “open to criticism” for the way in which some of their case was put forward, specifically an allegation that Associated employees had lied during the Leveson Inquiry, the U.K.’s judge-led review of the British press’ culture and practices.
“The allegations were extremely serious. Yet… they were not consistently anchored to identified statements which were put to the relevant witness as deliberate falsehoods,” Judge Nicklin wrote. “In significant respects the case shifted from the pleaded allegation of lies to broader criticisms of Associated’s inquiries, disclosure and corporate response to the Leveson Inquiry. This is not how allegations of this seriousness should be advanced.”
He also evaluated Harry as a witness more generally, saying: “In assessing Prince Harry’s evidence overall, it was apparent that he wished the Court to understand the personal impact of the matters in issue. At times, this led him beyond giving factual evidence into advancing arguments on the issues…Overall, this did not affect the quality of Prince Harry’s evidence, which I accept. As with each of the Claimants, Prince Harry has limited evidence to give on the contentious matters in dispute.”
Coincidentally, Harry is in the U.K. this week for the one-year countdown to the next Invictus Games, the sports tournament he created for injured military veterans, which is set to take place in Birmingham in July 2027.
The case is the latest in Harry’s long-running crusade against the press. He previously sued Mirror Group Newspapers for unlawful information gathering, winning 15 claims in his case, and News Group Newspapers over the same issue, which settled out of court. In 2022, Harry also sued Associated Newspapers for libel over an article concerning his lawsuit against the government. He eventually withdrew the libel claim against Associated and lost the claim against the government, which concerned his security arrangements.
In his joint statement with Baroness Lawrence, after the judgment was delivered, Prince Harry said: “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”.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Associated said: “This is a magnificent vindication of the Daily Mail’s journalism. The reputations of our decent and hard-working journalists were terribly impugned, and today they have been exonerated. As the judgment clearly shows, every single article was legitimately sourced. We will look to resolve outstanding issues, including the recovery of the costs we have incurred while defending ourselves against this egregious litigation.”
Even after yesterday’s judgment, Harry’s legal woes are not quite done. In March, the prince was sued by Sentebale, the charity he founded, for defamation, after a public falling out with the charity’s chair Sophie Chandauka.
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