Prince Harry and other prominent litigants have been ordered by London’s High Court to make an interim payment of £9.54 million ($17.9 million Cdn) towards the legal expenses of the publisher of the Daily Mail following the dismissal of their privacy lawsuits. Last month, Judge Matthew Nicklin decisively rejected the case brought by Prince Charles’s younger son and others, dismissing claims that the Mail publications had been involved in widespread illegal activities, such as phone hacking.
Among the high-profile individuals suing Associated Newspapers were singer Elton John and his Canadian spouse David Furnish, as well as actors Sadie Frost and Elizabeth Hurley. Other claimants included former Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes and Doreen Lawrence, who turned into an anti-racism advocate following the tragic murder of her son, Stephen, in 1993.
In his ruling on legal fees, Nicklin criticized the manner in which the claimants presented their case, noting that serious allegations were based on “speculative and inferential” grounds. “In my view, the collective impact of these issues places the case well outside standard practice. The behavior was unreasonably high,” Nicklin stated.
A spokesperson for Associated Newspapers hailed the judgment as “another significant victory for the Mail and its journalism.” The outstanding amount is required to be paid on an “indemnity basis,” as stated in Friday’s ruling. This means that as the unsuccessful party, Prince Harry and the other claimants must contribute to Associated’s legal costs without the publisher having to demonstrate that these costs were reasonable and proportionate.
During a hearing in July, the court was informed that Associated had accrued a legal bill of £34.5 million ($64.7 million Cdn), whereas Prince Harry and the other claimants were covered by an insurance policy amounting to £16 million ($30 million Cdn). Nicholas Bacon, the claimants’ lawyer, highlighted in their submissions that Associated’s legal expenses were exorbitant, far exceeding an agreed budget.
No decision has been made yet on whether the claimants will pursue an appeal. There was no immediate response from Harry’s spokesperson on Friday. The prince had previously characterized the court defeat earlier in the year as a “complete and blatant cover-up.”
Harry and Meghan recently announced their forthcoming return to the UK, intending to enroll their children in school there. Following a brief stay in British Columbia and a surprising departure from the UK that caught the British media off guard, the couple has resided in southern California for the past six years.
The ongoing case marks the final unresolved legal dispute in a series of lawsuits filed by Harry against tabloid publishers for employing illicit tactics. In a prior ruling, Harry was granted £140,600 (approximately $240,430 Cdn) after the High Court determined that he had been a victim of “modest” phone hacking and other unlawful information gathering by journalists at the Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, and Sunday People.
In 2023, Harry made history by becoming the first British royal to testify in a trial in 130 years as part of this case. Another major development saw Rupert Murdoch’s News Group in the UK issue a formal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the phone hacking, surveillance, and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators working for them. However, a court dismissed an assertion in a legal filing claiming that Murdoch’s newspaper group had a clandestine arrangement with Buckingham Palace to prevent royals from initiating such lawsuits.