El príncipe Harry y otros demandantes pierden caso contra editor del Daily Mail

• Prince Harry lost his high-profile case against the Daily Mail's publisher ANL for alleged unlawful information gathering in yet another blow to the estranged royal as he begins a fraught five-day trip back to the UK. A written judgement by the High Court published following an 11 week trial earlier this year said the “claimants failed to prove their pleaded allegations… the claims are therefore dismissedâ€.

• In an emphatic ruling that is likely to signal an end to new litigation relating to the phone-hacking scandal era, the high court dismissed all the group's claims, stating that the claimants had not proved that any information had been obtained unlawfully.

• The Duke of Sussex's and others claims against the Daily Mail's publisher over allegations of unlawful information gathering “should never have been brought to trialâ€, editor Paul Dacre has said. Following the judgment, ANL's editor-in-chief Dacre described the ruling as “a momentous victory for the Mail†and “an overwhelming vindication of our journalismâ€.

• Prince Harry and six other prominent figures now fave a legal bill of up to £50m after losing the case. ANL will try to recover its costs from the mammoth case. It potentially leaves the claimants with a bill of as much as £50m. It said the verdict represented “an overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists, and for a free press generallyâ€.

• Other claimants in the case were Doreen Lawrence, the mother of the murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence; the singer Elton John and his husband, David Furnish; the actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost; and the former Liberal Democrat minister Simon Hughes.

• In a comprehensive victory for the publisher, all the claims were dismissed by the court. The claimants' case was seriously damaged after a key witness, Gavin Burrows, a private investigator turned apparent whistleblower, said before his trial that his witness statement was a forgery and that he had not carried out illegal activity for the Mail titles.

• The Mail case is the last to be brought against newspaper groups by the prince, who is coincidentally in the UK for a series of charity engagements. He has been at the forefront of legal attempts to hold British newspapers to account for alleged past wrongdoing. He previously won substantial damages in his hacking case against the Daily Mirror, in which the judge found that 15 out of 33 articles related to Harry put to the court were the product of phone hacking or unlawful information-gathering.

Jessica Welch, partner in the reputation protection team at Simkins LLP, said: “This is a widely awaited decision given the subject matter and the claimants involved, but I don't believe that the application of this judgment to privacy law generally should be overstated.

“Mr Justice Nicklin was clear that the court's findings relate specifically to the 57 articles that formed part of the claim and the evidence available to the specific claimants. Much of the claimants' case rested on inference from decades-old conduct – the kind of covert activity that, by its nature, arguably leaves few direct traces. In the end, the Judge found that given the seriousness of the allegations, the claimants failed to reach the higher evidential burden required to prove them.

“However, the Judgment does not disturb the underlying privacy law framework established in earlier privacy case law, as well as the finding against Mirror Group Newspapers in 2023 of “widespread and habitual†phone hacking and the public apology and settlement from News Group Newspapers in previous phone hacking cases, all of which stand as precedent that such claims can succeed.â€

Simon Hughes, who lost his claim against Associated Newspapers (ANL) over claims of unlawful information gathering, said in a statement following Tuesday's ruling: “The judgment in the case against ANL is naturally very disappointing for me, and I am sure for all other claimants.

“I shall take time to consider the lengthy judgment in detail and plan to make no further comment in the near future.â€

Gideon Benaim, partner and head of the reputation protection team at Simkins LLP, said: “This is an important judgment, particularly given the profile of the parties and the allegations involved, but it appears on an initial reading to be highly fact specific.

“The court has concluded that the evidence before it didn't meet the threshold required to prove that unlawful information gathering took place. As Mr Justice Nicklin said in his judgment, “suspicion, even understandable suspicion, is not proofâ€.

“Most privacy cases will continue to depend on whether the information is private, whether publication was justified in the public interest and, ultimately, the evidence available to the court. I don't see this decision fundamentally changing that position.â€

Dacre concluded: “Today's verdict is not just a victory for Associated's magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally.

“Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper.

“Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour's Media Green Paper.

“Some of the allegations made by Harry's lawyers against the Mail involved Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein.

“They were rejected by the Court. But remember it was the power of the Mail's journalism that, not once, but twice, resulted in Mandelson being sacked as a minister.

“And it was the Mail on Sunday's exclusive picture of Prince Andrew, with his arm around 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre in Ghislaine Maxwell's home, that, ultimately, resulted in justice for Epstein's underage victims.

“Such justice only happened, as with Stephen Lawrence, because of the actions of a free press.â€

In a statement after the ruling, Associated Newspapers Limited's editor-in-chief Paul Dacre said: “Four years ago, lawyers for Prince Harry, Doreen Lawrence and Elton John accused the Mail, in a blaze of publicity, of placing bugs in homes, cars, cafés and landline phones.

“We described these charges – some related to stories that were over 30 years old – as ‘lurid and preposterous'.

“Today, in what was a momentous victory for the Mail, the High Court dismissed every single one of the 97 claims. That is an overwhelming vindication of our journalism.â€

He added:

The Mail's famous front-page naming five thugs as Stephen Lawrence's “MURDERERSâ€, could have seen me jailed for contempt of court.

Instead, it triggered the Macpherson Inquiry and the eventual jailing of two of the killers. Stephen's father, Neville, says he owes the Mail everything.

Why Baroness Lawrence – for whom we have always had profound respect and sympathy – chose to turn on both the paper, and the brilliant reporter who campaigned for justice for her son for over two decades, is something I will never be able to comprehend.

PA Media is reporting that Prince Harry's lawyer David Sherborne was seen entering Chatham House in central London to meet Harry on Tuesday afternoon, after the duke lost his case against the publishers of the Daily Mail.

The claimants presented the court with 55 articles published between 1997 and 2015, and three incidents that did not lead to articles, that they claimed demonstrated unlawful information gathering.

A series of extraordinary claims of illegality at the Mail were made by the claimants' legal team, which alleged “habitual and widespread†wrongdoing.

They included claims of phone hacking, landline tapping and bugging via private investigators, as well as making corrupt payments to police. All the claims were dismissed by the court.

You can read more here:

Hacked Off, a group which has long campaigned for tighter regulation of the British media, has reacted to today's high court judgment. Hacked Off board director and phone hacking victim Jacqui Hames said:

The stories and conduct which formed the basis for the claims against the Mail were devastatingly intrusive, and included medical details, information about children, and other deeply invasive behaviour and coverage.

The Mail's conduct fell well short of professional standards in the press, yet nothing has changed in the last twenty years and news publishers like the Mail still remain outside any independent form of regulation. Action to address standards in the press is long overdue, and must be a priority for the incoming administration.

The courts are not the appropriate vehicle for investigating the allegations of wrongdoing against the Mail in their fulness, and the judgment was clear in stating that, focusing on a handful of individual articles, the court had not made findings on whether illegality was widespread at the Mail.

Now only a public inquiry can get to the bottom of what really happened.

Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), which publishes the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline, has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Commenting on the overall evidence prince Harry gave during the trial in January, Mr Justice Nicklin said in his judgment:

In assessing Prince Harry's evidence overall, it was apparent that he wished the court to understand the personal impact of the matters in issue.

At times, this led him beyond giving factual evidence into advancing arguments on the issues, and exchanges followed with Mr White KC (Antony White KC, for Associated) in that vein.

As I indicated to Prince Harry at the time, that is not uncommon: many litigants feel a strong instinct to argue their case themselves.

However, when giving evidence, that is not a burden they are required to carry. The responsibility for advancing the party's case rests with the advocate.

Prince Harry hasn't given a reaction to today's judgment yet.

As we reported earlier in the blog, he arrived at an event for the Invictus Games in London's Chatham House shortly before the judgment was published this afternoon.

According to Sky News, he has been speaking since the judgment was published but has not mentioned the ruling, sticking to his pre-prepared script.

“What brings us together is far more important than what sets us apart,†he said.

“Each country represented here is writing its own chapterâ€.

The event is bringing together members of the Invictus community, leading experts and policymakers to discuss issues affecting injured and sick service personnel and veterans – all those eligible to take part in the paralympic-style games.

In the judgment, Mr Justice Nicklin acknowledged that the allegations were “seriousâ€, noting that they included claims of dishonesty, unlawful conduct and deliberately false evidence.

Because they were civil (not criminal) claims being brought against Associated Newspapers Limited, he explained that the legal test was whether the allegations were proved on a balance of probabilities.

“The more serious and less likely an allegation is, the more convincing the evidence must be before a court can find it proved,†he wrote, noting in the summary that the claimants could not rely on “suspicion, even where understandableâ€.

“The claimants had to prove that the information complained of had been obtained unlawfully. The court rejected the argument that, simply because information was private, and because Associated could not positively explain how it had been sourced, the relevant article must have been unlawfully sourced,†the judgment read.

In a ruling that is likely to signal an end to new litigation relating to the phone-hacking scandal, the high court dismissed all the claims, stating the claimants had not proved information had been obtained unlawfully.

The written verdict from Mr Justice Nicklin said the court could not simply infer a story had been obtained unlawfully if there was a legitimate and realistic legal way in which they could have been sourced.

You can read more on the significance of the ruling from the Guardian's media editor, Michael Savage, here:

In the summary, the judge said that a hearing will now take place on 29–30 July to hear arguments on “any points of dispute as to the consequential orders to be made†following today's judgment.

The verdict potentially leaves the claimants with a huge bill for the case, which is thought to be as much as £50m.

We are getting a statement through from the Associated Newspapers Limited, the publisher of the Daily Mail, which celebrates the judgment ruling in its favour and says it will seek to recover costs. The statement, attributed to a spokesperson, reads:

Associated Newspapers welcomes today's judgement, which is an overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists, and for a free press generally.

“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.

“This is a magnificent vindication of the Daily Mail's journalism.

“For some of the most outrageous allegations made when the case was launched in a blaze of publicity four years ago – placing bugs in people's cars and homes, listening to calls as they were made and illicitly accessing bank accounts – no credible evidence was ever presented.

“As we said at the time, these allegations were ‘lurid' and ‘preposterous', and were a fishing expedition by the claimants and their legal teams in a politically motivated campaign to muzzle the free press.

“The reputations of our decent and hard-working journalists were terribly impugned, and today they have been exonerated.

“As the judgement clearly shows, every single article was legitimately sourced.

“Associated Newspapers thanks Mr Justice Nicklin for the patience and wisdom he has displayed throughout this misguided legal action, which has wasted so much valuable court time and more than £50m in legal costs.

“We will look to resolve outstanding issues, including the recovery of the costs we have incurred while defending ourselves against this egregious litigation.