Prince Harry loses privacy lawsuit against Daily Mail publisher
Prince Harry loses privacy lawsuit against Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers after a U.K. High Court judge ruled he and six other high-profile claimants failed to prove allegations of unlawful information gathering. The Duke of Sussex, who lives in Montecito, California, had accused the tabloid of phone hacking, landline tapping and bugging homes and cars.
The decision ends a long-running legal fight that Prince Harry and his co-claimants launched in 2022. The group argued that journalists from the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday obtained private information through unlawful means spanning years of tabloid coverage.
Key Takeaways
- Prince Harry and six other public figures lost their privacy lawsuit against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail.
- A judge said all claimants failed to prove allegations including phone hacking, landline tapping, and bugging homes and cars.
- An 11-week trial earlier this year carried estimated costs of about $40 million.
- Associated Newspapers called the ruling a magnificent vindication of its journalism.
- Harry remains in the U.K. this week for Invictus Games countdown events while facing a separate defamation suit from his Sentebale charity.
Why did Prince Harry lose his privacy lawsuit against the Daily Mail?
Judge Nicklin dismissed the claims after finding the group could not prove their pleaded allegations. Associated Newspapers had strenuously denied that its journalists engaged in unlawful information gathering, and the court said each claimant fell short of the evidence required.
The judge also criticized how some allegations were presented, particularly claims that Associated employees lied during the Leveson Inquiry, the U.K.'s judge-led review of press culture. He wrote that such serious allegations were not consistently anchored to identified statements and that the case shifted beyond the original claims.
Who joined Prince Harry in the lawsuit?
Beyond the Duke of Sussex, the 2022 suit included Sir Elton John, David Furnish, actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, campaigner Doreen Lawrence, and former politician Sir Simon Hughes. Together they represented one of the most prominent group privacy actions ever brought against a British tabloid publisher.
For more on high-profile media and courtroom fallout, see our Streaming & TV Alerts coverage.
What did the judge say about Prince Harry's testimony?
In his judgment, Judge Nicklin said Prince Harry wished the Court to understand the personal impact of the matters in issue and at times moved beyond factual testimony into argument. Still, he found that did not undermine the quality of Harry's evidence, which he accepted.
The judge added that Harry, like the other claimants, had limited evidence to give on the contentious matters in dispute. That constraint appears to have been central as the court weighed whether specific Daily Mail stories were unlawfully sourced.
What happens next after the ruling?
A hearing to determine legal costs will be held at a later date, with the trial already estimated around $40 million. Associated Newspapers said it would seek to recover expenses from defending what it called egregious litigation.
The case marks another chapter in Harry's press battles. He previously secured a partial victory against Mirror Group Newspapers before settling and reached an out-of-court settlement with News Group Newspapers. He also withdrew a 2022 libel claim against Associated Newspapers while losing a separate security-arrangements case against the government.
Even with this defeat, Harry's legal docket is not clear. In March, Sentebale, the charity he founded, sued him for defamation following a public dispute with chair Sophie Chandauka. For full details on the ruling, read the Variety report.