SARAH VINE: I can’t help wondering if Harry was influenced by more cunning players in this saga – just as his mother was so tragically swayed by Martin Bashir

Winston Churchill said: ‘The solution in war is; in defeat, in challenge; In victory, in magnanimity.’ Words of wisdom indeed, and they are words that come to mind at the end of the long, hard, four-year campaign that Prince Harry and others waged to bring down this newspaper.

Inevitably, the judge found no evidence of wrongdoing and ruled entirely in the Daily Mail’s favour. But sometimes magnanimity also has room for a whisper of schadenfreude, especially when the loser in question—or losers—have caused so much pain to so many.

It is worth remembering, for example, that if not for the courage and defiance of the Daily Mail and its then editor Paul Dacre, Stephen Lawrence’s murderers would never have been brought to justice.

In 1997 he took a huge personal risk by putting their faces on the front page of the Daily Mail; but ultimately if he had not done so there would almost certainly have been no Macpherson Inquiry or the retrial and conviction of two of the original suspects.

So it’s heartbreaking that Stephen’s mother was part of this attack. His misguided involvement in this case is a tragedy that gives new meaning to the old saying ‘no good deed goes unpunished’.

It was even more cruel that, following this decision, Stephen’s mother added her voice to Prince Harry’s last night out, declaring it a ‘complete and blatant whitewash’ and claiming they had received ‘neither justice nor accountability’.

Of course, celebrities and other public figures have always had a love-hate relationship with the media. Balancing the need for self-promotion with the desire for privacy is a difficult act.

But it’s one thing to be a little annoyed with an overzealous reporter; Declaring war on an entire industry just because it refuses to dance your way is quite another.

Perennially the most annoyed member of the elite’s most privileged group, Harry certainly never seems particularly mindful of the repercussions of his actions on others. We’ve seen this over and over again in his interactions with his own family.

His father, his brother, his sister-in-law, even his late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. Elizabeth: While Harry was on the warpath, none of their feelings seemed to be taken into account.

We saw this most sharply in his autobiography, Spare; Here he not only trampled on the feelings of everyone near him, but also seemed to enjoy destroying the so-called ‘little people’ in his life.

People like Pat, the headmistress of her school, whom she describes with reckless cruelty: ‘Pat wasn’t hot. Pat was cold. ‘Pat was small, mousy, worn out, and her hair fell greasy into her always tired eyes,’ he wrote.

Poor Pat: He was probably being driven half-mad by spiteful little lords like Harry. He goes on to recall how he and his friends made fun of him for his ‘crooked spine’ and laughed at him as he walked down the stairs in pain.

And let’s not forget the woman he lost his virginity to, this episode was dismissed as a “quick ride”. He didn’t even think to warn her that she might be identified after it was described in the book.

The fact that neither of their feelings seemed to matter one bit to Harry – at least to my mind – said a lot about his true character. These people are completely expendable to him and definitely not the women whose feelings really matter.

It’s debatable whether this domineering attitude towards other people is something Prince Harry recognizes in himself. Not likely, because he never stops talking about how he sees himself as a champion of ‘kindness’.

But to the rest of the world, this is an obvious character trait that has led to many of his poor decisions in life, especially in recent years.

In fact, if he doesn’t get his way, he blames and attacks others. To her father, to the Royal Family, to the British government, to the media, even to former friends and colleagues who dared to question the victim narrative.

This last, unsuccessful attempt to shift the blame for his difficulties onto others is the ultimate expression of this illusion. So is his response to this decision, which he despises (‘whitewashing’). It also reveals a fundamental ignorance of the way newspapers and the law work.

Perhaps like his mother Princess Diana, Harry is convinced the Royal Family is against him, writes Sarah Vine

It was clear from the start that Prince Harry had a poor understanding of the workings of the law, writes Sarah

“This decision represents a complete reversal of the stance taken by previous judges in relation to the hacking allegations that were successfully made against both News Group Newspapers and Mirror Group Newspapers,” he said.

I hate to break it to you, sir, but the Daily Mail is neither of these organisations, and the law is – quite correctly – based on previous decisions rather than deciding each case on its merits.

But it was clear from the beginning that Prince Harry did not understand the workings of the law very well.

There is a telling passage in the judge’s decision: ‘In considering Prince Harry’s evidence overall, it was clear that he wanted the court to understand the personal impact of the issues at stake. At times this led him beyond presenting factual evidence to advancing arguments on issues…

‘As I pointed out to Prince Harry at the time, this is not an unusual situation. Most litigants have a strong instinct to defend their cases themselves. However, this is not a burden they have to carry when testifying. The responsibility for advancing the party’s case lies with the attorney.

‘Overall this did not affect the quality of Prince Harry’s evidence, which I accept. As with each of the plaintiffs, Prince Harry was limited in the evidence he could present on the issues in dispute.’

In other words, Harry has no real idea what he’s doing here. But maybe he’s not entirely to blame. After all, he is not the sharpest shot in the penalty area. And in this instance at least, I can’t help but wonder whether his mind has been taken over, or perhaps influenced by the more cunning actors of this saga.

Tragically, this is what happened to Harry’s mother, Princess Diana. Thanks to the duplicity of the BBC and its disgraced reporter Martin Bashir, he becomes convinced that the Royal Family is out to hunt him down.

Bashir ruthlessly exploited his anxiety and paranoia by falsifying bank statements to ensure the trust of his brother, Earl Spencer, and by extension himself, and produced frightening conspiracy theories that told him his phone was tapped and his life was in danger. As a result, he accepted the 1995 Panorama interview under the misconception that it was the only way to protect himself.

Frankly, if there’s one media outlet that should be going after Prince Harry, it’s the BBC; he still has not paid compensation or officially reprimanded Bashir. But the BBC being bad doesn’t fit the narrative, does it?

In the end, newspapers were relieved by this decision, but there is no real sense of victory. Some of our colleagues will never fully recover, but at least now they will have the satisfaction of knowing they were proven right.

As for Harry, perhaps this would be an opportune moment to pause and reflect on some of the choices he’s made over the last few years and consider which battles are worth fighting. It has the potential to be what my ex-husband, who was once Minister of Education, calls a ‘teachable moment’.

What is life if not a series of mistakes from which we must learn? Then again, I may know Harry, I may not.