‘Whitewash’ claims after Harry privacy case ruling
Prince Harry, Elton John and other celebrities have lost their High Court case against the Daily Mail’s publisher.
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Prince Harry, Elton John and other celebrities have lost their High Court privacy case against the Daily Mail‘s publisher.
Harry, who was in Britain when London’s High Court handed down its ruling on Tuesday (local time), has brought several legal cases against the British media and has long railed against their alleged abuse of power.
The prince, 41, has long blamed the press for the 1997 Paris car crash that killed his mother, Princess Diana.
He has also compared her treatment to that of his American wife Meghan Markle, holding back tears in the witness box in January as he said the Daily Mail had made the Duchess of Sussex’s life “an absolute misery”.
Prince Harry was in Britain for Tuesday’s landmark court ruling. Photo: AAP
He had previously won against the publisher of the Daily Mirror tabloid and settled a claim with Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper arm. But Tuesday’s ruling is a significant defeat in his battles with the media.
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“His campaign against the other newspaper groups has largely been successful,” media lawyer Mark Stephens told Reuters.
“But I think it’s time to reappraise what the media today is and it’s very different to the media of [the time of] Princess Diana.”
Harry said the judgment was an “obvious whitewash”, in a statement issued on behalf of him and fellow claimant Doreen Lawrence. Her son Stephen was murdered by a gang of white men in a notorious racist attack in 1993.
“We came to court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither,” the pair’s statement said.
“It is a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected.”
Publisher Associated Newspapers said the 436-page judgment was “an overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists and for a free press generally”. It said it would seek its legal costs after a trial it said cost more than £50 million ($96 million).
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“As the judgment clearly shows, every single article was legitimately sourced,” it said.
Harry and the other claimants, including Elton John, alleged dozens of stories about them published by Associated Newspapers in the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday from the 1990s to 2011 were based on information that was obtained unlawfully.
Elton John was among claimants against the publisher. Photo: AAP
Their lawyers alleged information was obtained by private investigators, by hacking into messages on mobile phones, tapping landlines or obtaining personal information, such as medical records, by “blagging” – deceiving people into handing over confidential details.
Associated, however, said the allegations were smears and the Daily Mail‘s long-serving former editor Paul Dacre accused Harry of hypocrisy for alleging invasions of his privacy while having repeatedly spoken publicly about the royal family.
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin,” Dacre, formerly one of Britain’s most powerful press figures, said.
“Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case.”
Judge Matthew Nicklin said in his ruling that the claimants had needed to prove that information published about them had been obtained unlawfully, but suspicion was not enough.
Dismissing the prince’s case in relation to one specific article about his relationship with then-girlfriend Chelsy Davy, Nicklin said that “privacy alone does not prove unlawful acquisition”.
Harry and Lawrence said: “We presented to the court evidence which we believed was compelling at the time and remains so now.”
—with AAP
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