Prince Harry, Elton John and more lose privacy lawsuit

Prince Harry, King Charles’ estranged younger son, and other high-profile British figures have lost their privacy lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail, alleging widespread illegal behavior.

Harry, who was in Britain when the London High Court made its decision, has launched several lawsuits against the British press and has long railed against alleged abuses of power.

The 41-year-old prince, who long blamed the press for the 1997 Paris car accident in which his mother Princess Diana died, saw it as a “public duty” to sue the Daily Mail publisher.

He held back tears in the witness box in January as he told the Daily Mail that his wife Meghan had made his life “an absolute misery”.

He had previously won against the publisher of the Daily Mirror and settled a bet with Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper arm, but Tuesday’s decision was a significant setback in his battle with the media.

He and other plaintiffs, including Elton John, claimed that dozens of stories published by Associated Newspapers in the Daily Mail and Mail Sunday from the 1990s to 2011 were based on illegally obtained information.

But Associated said the claims were defamation and they were completely denied on Tuesday in what the publisher described as a “sweeping victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists”.

In his summary of his decision, Judge Matthew Nicklin said the plaintiffs had to prove that the information published about them was obtained illegally, but suspicion was not enough.

“The court rejected the argument that the relevant article must have been unlawfully sourced because the information was private and Associated failed to affirmatively explain how it was obtained,” the summary said. The statement was included.