London, July 7, (PA Media/dpa/GNA) – Prince Harry, Elton John and other well-known figures, had their claims against the Daily Mail’s publisher over alleged unlawful information gathering, dismissed by a High Court judge in London on Tuesday.
A group of household names, also including David Furnish, Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, alleged acts including voicemail interception, landline tapping and obtaining information by deception, also known as “blagging”, carried out by private investigators, freelance journalists and staff at Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).
ANL strongly denied the claims, as it defended the cases, which it also said had been brought too late. In a decision on Tuesday, judge Matthew Nicklin said none of the group of seven had proven the allegations of unlawful information gathering.
He said in the 436-page ruling, “For the reasons given in this judgment, each of the claimants’ claims is dismissed.” Following the judgment, ANL said the ruling dismissing the claims is an “overwhelming victory” and a “magnificent vindication of the Daily Mail’s journalism”.
In a statement, the publisher continued, “Mr Justice Nicklin today cleared the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, and dismissed every single one of the 97 allegations made by the claimants. “In every case, the judge accepted the honesty of our journalists’ evidence on how they sourced their stories.” ANL added, “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.”
In a joint statement after the ruling, Harry and Baroness Doreen Lawrence said, the ruling was a “complete reversal of the position, which previous judges have taken in relation to the hacking claims” brought against News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun and the defunct News of the World, and Mirror Group Newspapers, publisher of the Mirror. They said, “We came to court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither. “Generic findings about various private investigators that were held by the courts in these parallel claims to have carried out unlawful activity at the very same time in relation to similar stories and well-known individuals have been wholly ignored. “The fact that this court has chosen to dismiss them represents an inconsistency which is hard to understand or reconcile with common sense, or the evidence heard in the court room itself. “It is a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected. “However, the lengths to which the court has gone to exonerate the Mail is as shocking as it is totally unwarranted. “When the court says there is not sufficient evidence of wrongdoing, despite the documents showing otherwise, then one does wonder how justice was ever going to be achieved.”
In the ruling, Nicklin said it was clear Harry “wished the court to understand the personal impact of the matters in issue” during his evidence in January. The judge later said that it was up to the group of claimants to prove the allegations of unlawful information gathering. Nicklin said, “in substance, the claimants’ case invites the court to conclude that, because the information was private and because Associated cannot positively explain how it was sourced, the article must have been unlawfully sourced.
“That is not a permissible approach.” The decision comes after Harry returned to the UK on Monday ahead of five days of appearances in London and Birmingham, including marking the one-year countdown to the 2027 Invictus Games.
The duke will not stay at Buckingham Palace, and his spokesman said on Monday that it was “disappointing” the offer from the King had been “withdrawn at the last moment”, with the looming judgment given as the reason. A further hearing in the claims is now expected to take place, lasting two days from July 29.
GNA