A UK court has dismissed Prince Harry’s case against the Daily Mail for alleged breaches of privacy.
Sir Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley, and antiracism advocate Doreen Lawrence were also claimants in the case.
The Court said the claimants “failed to prove their pleaded allegations”.
In a statement, Prince Harry and Lawrence called the outcome a “complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected.”
Here’s what you need to know.
Case
The trial against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), which publishes the Daily Mail, began in January.
There were seven claimants in the case: Prince Harry, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, former politician Sir Simon Hughes, actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, and anti-racism campaigner Doreen Lawrence.
The seven claimants alleged ANL collected information about them illegally, and misused it from “at least 1993” until 2011, “and even continued beyond until 2018.”
During the trial, the BBC reported London’s High Court heard a statement from Prince Harry saying he felt “paranoid beyond belief” due to ANL’s alleged “grave breaches of privacy”.
Barrister David Sherborne said there were 14 articles that allegedly included unlawfully obtained information.
Sir Elton John and Furnish accused ANL of “stealing” their son’s birth certificate.
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Verdict
This week, Justice Matthew Nicklin dismissed the group’s claims, on the grounds they “failed to prove their pleaded allegations of unlawful information gathering.”
Nicklin said the Court “rejected” their arguments, saying the evidence “did not prove” the information was “obtained unlawfully.”
The Court also said the claimants could not “replace” the initial arguments pleaded at the start of the case with “more serious” allegations stated during the trial.
Response
ANL Editor-in-Chief Paul Dacre called the dismissal an “overwhelming vindication of our journalism.”
Dacre said he “feel[s] sorry” for Prince Harry, who he called a “confused and angry young man”.
“The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper.”
Dacre said the case “should never have been brought to trial,” calling it a “conspiracy... to destroy a paper.”
In a joint statement, Prince Harry and Lawrence accused the Court of “exonerating[ing] the Mail”.
“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.”
“It feels here like one rule for the newspapers and another for the claimants," they said.
