\n<\/p>\n
The Duke of Sussex and six other prominent figures have lost their case against the publisher of the Daily Mail over claims it sourced stories using an array of unlawful methods over two decades.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Prince Harry was one of a group of seven prominent figures who launched the multimillion-pound case against Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), which publishes the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline.<\/p>\n
They accused the publisher of \u201cclear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information gathering\u201d over several years. Dozens of journalists and private investigators were named in the group\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
ANL\u2019s legal team described the claims as \u201clurid\u201d and \u201cpreposterous\u201d. In each instance, it said, stories were sourced legitimately from press officers, previous articles or the \u201cleaky\u201d social circles of celebrities.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The group 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.<\/p>\n
A series of extraordinary claims of illegality at the Mail were made by the claimants\u2019 legal team, which alleged \u201chabitual and widespread\u201d wrongdoing. They included claims of phone hacking, landline tapping and bugging via private investigators, as well as making corrupt payments to police.<\/p>\n
All the claims were dismissed by the court.<\/p>\n
ANL said the verdict represented \u201can overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists, and for a free press generally\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a magnificent vindication of the Daily Mail\u2019s journalism,\u201d a spokesperson said. \u201cFor some of the most outrageous allegations made when the case was launched in a blaze of publicity four years ago \u2013 placing bugs in people\u2019s cars and homes, listening to calls as they were made and illicitly accessing bank accounts – no credible evidence was ever presented.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotionFree newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n
Sign up to First Edition<\/span><\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n It potentially leaves the claimants with a huge bill for the case, which is thought to be as much as \u00a350m.<\/p>\n Dozens of editors and journalists, including the formidable former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, gave evidence denying illegal activity.<\/p>\n Harry was the first of the claimants to give evidence at the 11-week trial, in which he said the Mail\u2019s titles had made his wife\u2019s life \u201can absolute misery\u201d.<\/p>\n More details soon \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Duke of Sussex and six other prominent figures have lost their case against the publisher of the Daily Mail over claims it sourced stories using an array of unlawful methods over two decades. In a ruling that is likely to signal an end to new litigation relating to the phone-hacking scandal, the high court<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1891,926,3289,2661,7478,11943,22988,12312,17095],"class_list":{"0":"post-50957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-claims","9":"tag-harry","10":"tag-lawsuit","11":"tag-loses","12":"tag-mail","13":"tag-newspapers","14":"tag-phonehacking","15":"tag-prince","16":"tag-publisher"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}