A High Court judge in London has thrown out a long-running privacy case brought by Prince Harry and six other prominent people against Associated Newspapers, the company behind the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. The judge found that, for all the seriousness of the accusations, the claimants had not shown their private information was obtained by illegal means.
The ruling
The judge, Matthew Nicklin, dismissed the claims, holding that suspicion was not enough and that the group needed to prove the disputed information had been gathered unlawfully, CBS News reported. The decision followed a trial that ran for weeks and examined allegations stretching back decades.
Who brought the case, and what they alleged
The claimants were the Duke of Sussex along with the musician Elton John and his husband David Furnish, the actress Elizabeth Hurley, the campaigner Doreen Lawrence, the actress Sadie Frost and the former member of Parliament Simon Hughes, Al Jazeera reported. They accused the publisher of using unlawful methods, including phone tapping, listening to voicemails and deception, to obtain private information used in around 50 articles published between the 1990s and 2011.
The publisher's position
Associated Newspapers has consistently denied the allegations, arguing that the articles in question were based on information obtained lawfully, from sources such as friends, aides and publicists connected to the claimants. The company welcomed the ruling as a vindication of that stance.
The reaction
Prince Harry rejected the outcome, calling it "a complete and obvious whitewash," and, in a joint statement with Doreen Lawrence, said they had come to court "seeking justice and accountability" but received "neither," CNN reported. The verdict is a notable setback in his wider campaign against the British tabloid press. It contrasts with an earlier case in which he prevailed in part against a different publisher over phone hacking. Whether he will appeal was not immediately clear, but the decision, at least for now, closes one of the highest-profile fronts in his battle with the newspapers he has long accused of intruding on his life.
