London, UK – Prince Harry on Tuesday lost his high-profile case against the Daily Mail’s publisher 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 London’s High Court published following an 11-week trial earlier this year said the “claimants failed to prove their pleaded allegations… the claims are therefore dismissed.”
The ruling was delivered as Harry attended an event in the capital, with Associated Newspapers calling it an “overwhelming victory” and a “magnificent vindication of the Daily Mail’s journalism.”
It said the court’s dismissal of “every single one of the 97 allegations made by the claimants” showed Judge Matthew Nicklin had “accepted the honesty of our journalists’ evidence on how they sourced their stories.”
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Allegations that bugs had been placed in people’s cars and homes, calls listened to, and bank accounts illicitly accessed had been “lurid” and “preposterous” with “no credible evidence” ever presented, Associated said in a statement.
“The reputations of our decent and hard-working journalists were terribly impugned, and today they have been exonerated,” it added.
Prince Harry said the ruling was a “complete and obvious whitewash” but was “not altogether unexpected,” in a joint statement with Doreen Lawrence, whose son was murdered in a 1993 racist attack.
“The lengths to which the court has gone to exonerate the Mail are as shocking as it is totally unwarranted,” said the youngest son of King Charles III.
The ruling came shortly after Harry arrived at a central London event for the Invictus Games, launched for wounded veterans in 2014.
At the same time, his estranged brother, heir to the throne, Prince William, was also in the city, visiting the London Welsh School to promote next month’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Harry will now face another court hearing on July 29-30, which could see him and the six other complainants ordered to pay substantial legal costs.
Associated said it had spent £50 million ($66 million) “defending ourselves against this egregious litigation.”
“We will look to resolve outstanding issues, including the recovery of the costs we have incurred,” it added.
The prince gave emotional testimony during the proceedings in which several high-profile figures, including singer Elton John and actor Elizabeth Hurley, accused the tabloid publisher of invading their privacy.
The case, the third and final one brought by the Duke of Sussex in his acrimonious legal battle with British tabloids, has further strained relations with the royal family.
