Has Harry’s war with the press finally run out of road?
The publisher insisted on swearing at the 2011 Leveson Inquiry into press standards that there had been no wrongdoing in its newspapers.
Its opponents said the all-or-nothing defense made Associated Newspapers vulnerable to the discovery of even the smallest amount of evidence of illegal activity. As it turned out, there wasn’t even that.
Other law firms were watching the case closely to determine their own approaches to handling Associated Newspapers.
The BBC has been told that potential plaintiffs include the “usual suspects” who have won cases against other newspapers, as well as a well-known figure with links to the royal family.
It is not yet known whether these legal proceedings will continue in light of Tuesday’s decision.
However, it seems that the 20-year history of such claims will now come to an end.
The Associated Newspapers case was different from previous cases in several respects.
The judge made it harder for plaintiffs to win by insisting that they must prove conclusively that each newspaper story was obtained unlawfully, rather than allowing “general evidence” about journalists’ “tendency” to break the rules.
The judge also found that the evidence was collected through questionable means.
Some key documents and witnesses were obtained for money by Graham Johnson, a former phone hacking journalist turned press standards campaigner.
He paid private detectives to get information and told the BBC this week this was so he could write online stories about the scandal. The use of information as evidence came later.
The judge concluded it was “not credible”. He ruled that Johnson knew his work was for both journalism and winning the case.
Private investigator Gavin Burrows, one of those charged, appears to have made two statements. One said he had engaged in widespread unlawful activities for the Mail newspapers, while another said he had done no such thing.
The statements canceled each other out for the judge, who ruled that what Burrows said could not be trusted.
