Harry says ruling dismissing Mail claims is ‘complete and obvious whitewash’

Britain’s Prince Harry and Doreen Lawrence have described the UK High Court’s dismissal of their unlawful information gathering claims against the Daily Mail’s publisher as a “complete and obvious whitewash”.

A group of household names, also including Elton John and David Furnish, alleged acts including voicemail interception, landline tapping and obtaining information by deception, also known as “blagging”, were carried out by private investigators, freelance journalists and staff at Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).

ANL strongly denied the claims as it defended the cases, which it also said had been brought too late.

In a decision on Tuesday, judge Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed all of the claims, ruling that none of the group of seven had proven the allegations of unlawful information gathering.

In a joint statement after the ruling, Harry and Lawrence said the ruling was a “complete reversal of the position which previous judges have taken in relation to the hacking claims” brought against News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun and the defunct News of the World, and Mirror Group Newspapers, publisher of the Mirror.

They said: “We came to court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither.

“Generic findings about various private investigators that were held by the courts in these parallel claims to have carried out unlawful activity at the very same time in relation to similar stories and well-known individuals have been wholly ignored.

“The fact that this court has chosen to dismiss them represents an inconsistency which is hard to understand or reconcile with common sense, or the evidence heard in the court room itself.

“It is a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected.

“However, the lengths to which the court has gone to exonerate the Mail is as shocking as it is totally unwarranted.

“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.”

Harry and Lawrence added that “it feels here like one rule for the newspapers and another for the claimants”.

They continued: “While the claimants presented evidence, Mail journalists simply gave denials and the court chose uncritically to believe them, even in the face of inconsistencies, contradictions and blatant untruths that were obvious to neutral observers in court when compared to the documents.

“We presented to the court evidence which we believed was compelling at the time and remains so now.”

In the 436-page ruling, Mr Justice Nicklin said that it was up to the group of claimants to prove the allegations of unlawful information gathering.

He said: “Whilst the standard of proof remains the balance of probabilities, the more serious, and inherently less probable, the allegation, the more cogent the evidence required to prove it.”

The judge said he had accepted that the cases of the group of household names often relied on inferences, given the nature and age of the allegations, but said in reference to some of the articles in the case that “suspicion is not enough”.

Mr Justice Nicklin also said: “In substance, the claimants’ case invites the court to conclude that, because the information was private and because Associated cannot positively explain how it was sourced, the article must have been unlawfully sourced.

“That is not a permissible approach.”

After the judgment, ANL’s editor in chief Paul Dacre described the ruling as “a momentous victory for the Mail” and “an overwhelming vindication of our journalism”.

Under Dacre’s editorship, the Daily Mail campaigned to bring the killers of Lawrence’s son Stephen to justice after he was murdered in 1993.

He said in his statement that Lawrence’s father Neville “says he owes the Mail everything”, adding: “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.”

Dacre later said: “The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial.

“That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession.”

Discussing Harry, Dacre said there was not “a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family”, and that he feels “sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case”.

Dozens of people gave evidence during the trial in London, including Harry, the rest of the group of household names, also including Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost and Simon Hughes, as well as many current or former ANL journalists and executives.

During around two hours of cross-examination in January, Harry said he could not complain about some of the 14 articles in his case at the time “because of the institution I was in”.

Mr Justice Nicklin said it was clear Harry “wished the court to understand the personal impact of the matters in issue” during his evidence in January, but “this did not affect the quality” of the duke’s evidence, which the judge accepted.

The trial also heard arguments over whether the cases were brought in time as the law states that legal action related to unlawful information-gathering must be launched within six years of someone discovering they could have a claim.

Mr Justice Nicklin said that even if unlawful information gathering had been proven, Sir Simon and Ms Frost’s claims had been brought too late.

The decision comes after Harry returned to the UK on Monday ahead of five days of appearances in London and Birmingham, including marking the one-year countdown to the 2027 Invictus Games.

Harry will not stay at Buckingham Palace, and his spokesman said on Monday that it was “disappointing” the offer from King Charles had been “withdrawn at the last moment”, with the looming judgment given as the reason.

A further hearing in the claims is now expected to take place, lasting two days from July 29th.