Prince Harry’s phone hacking case against the Daily Mail is dismissed in full

The £50 million phone hacking lawsuit brought by Prince Harry, Doreen Lawrence and many other celebrities against the publishers of the Daily Mail has been dismissed in its entirety today.

The case, filed by the Duke of Sussex and six plaintiffs including Sir Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley, was heard in a three-month hearing at London’s High Court earlier this year.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Nicklin, accepted that each article complained of was based on legitimate sources.

The claim was brought against Associated Newspapers, which publishes the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday.

In his executive summary of his decision, Mr Justice Nicklin said: ‘He called journalistic witnesses who made legal statements regarding the source of relevant, controversial articles and events.

‘The court accepted their evidence, including their rejection of UIG [unlawful information gathering].

‘The allegations were serious; It included allegations of fraud, illegal conduct and deliberately false evidence. The more serious an allegation and the less likely it is, the more convincing the evidence must be before the court finds it proven.’

A spokesman for Associated Newspapers said: ‘Associated Newspapers welcomes today’s decision, which is a landslide victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists, and for the free press generally.

‘His Honor Judge Nicklin today cleared the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday and dismissed each of the 97 claims made by the plaintiffs. In each case the Judge accepted the honesty of our journalists’ evidence about how they sourced their stories.

‘This is a magnificent testament to the Daily Mail’s journalism.

‘For some of the most outrageous allegations made when the incident became public four years ago – bugging people’s cars and homes, wiretapping calls and illegal access to bank accounts – no credible evidence has ever been produced.

As we said at the time, these allegations were “appalling” and “unconscionable” and were a fishing expedition by the plaintiffs and their legal teams as part of a politically motivated campaign to silence the free Press.

‘The reputations of our honest and hard-working journalists were terribly damaged and today they have been acquitted.

‘As the decision clearly shows, each article was taken from legitimate sources.

‘Associated Newspapers would like to thank Mr Justice Nicklin for his patience and wisdom throughout this misguided legal proceeding which has resulted in the waste of valuable court time and more than £50 million in legal fees.

‘We will seek to resolve any outstanding issues, including covering the costs we have incurred in defending ourselves against this grave litigation.’

Prince Harry flew from California to testify in his trial, which lasted just 75 minutes.

Filled with anger, the man told the judge his wife’s life had become ‘absolute misery’ despite the Duchess of Sussex having nothing to do with the case.

But far from being the victim of phone hacking, evidence has emerged that Prince Harry himself spoke to journalists and even partied at his country house on a weekend with a Mail on Sunday reporter who called him ‘Mr Mischief’.

Harry called her ‘sugar’ and wrote: ‘I miss our chill movies!’

In assessing Prince Harry’s evidence overall, the judge said it was ‘clear that he wanted the court to understand the personal impact of the issues at stake’. ‘Sometimes this led him beyond presenting factual evidence to advancing arguments on the issues.’

Mr Justice Nicklin added: ‘As I pointed out to Prince Harry at the time, this is not unusual: many claimants have a strong instinct to defend their cases themselves.

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

Since the trial began in 2022, the Daily Mail has consistently denied the accusations, for which there has never been any credible evidence.

Even the plaintiffs’ own so-called star witness, a private detective named Gavin Burrows, told them he had never worked for the Mail, but they pressed the case anyway.

Prince Harry, Mrs Hurley, Sir Elton, her husband David Furnish and Baroness Lawrence made their claims based on Mr Burrows’ alleged ‘admissions’ that he had hacked their voicemails, tapped their landline, bugged Hugh Grant’s car and, in Mrs Hurley’s case, placed a sticky microphone in her dining room window; None of this was true.

In his statement, Mr Burrows said the “confession” was written by Prince Harry’s legal investigators and was “a pack of lies”, complete with forging his signature.

The statement was corroborated by a ‘certificate of fitness’ issued by Baroness Lawrence’s glamorous lawyer, Anjlee Sangani, who dropped the case just before the trial began.

By the time Mr. Burrows arrived to testify under oath, the plaintiffs had tied themselves in knots and began calling their star witness a liar and a drunk.

The judge dismissed all of Burrows’ claims.

Mr Justice Nicklin found that Mail journalist Stephen Wright had given accurate evidence, his explanations were ‘consistent and reasonable’ and his claim that he had paid police officers corruptly was rejected.

His decision said: ‘I accept Mr Wright’s evidence that he did not make corrupt payments to acting police officers in relation to the specific alleged incidents or generally.’

The judge also said the Daily Mail’s Royal Editor, Rebecca English, was an ‘impressive and honest witness’, adding that her explanations of where she got the stories were ‘entirely plausible’.

He claimed that Prince Harry tried to get the flight details of his ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy.

The judge criticized the plaintiffs’ lawyers for making allegations against Ms English at her hearing about phone hacking that were ‘completely unsupported by the evidence’.

Mr Justice Nicklin said: ‘This was, in substance, a serious allegation made without detail or evidence.’