Prince Harry and six other prominent figures lost their High Court privacy lawsuit against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, after a judge dismissed all 97 allegations of unlawful information gathering on Tuesday.
Mr Justice Nicklin ruled in a 436-page judgment that the claimants — who included musicians Elton John and Baroness Doreen Lawrence — had failed to prove the publisher used illegal methods such as voicemail interception, landline tapping, or "blagging" to obtain private information between the early 1990s and the 2010s. Associated Newspapers editor-in-chief Paul Dacre called the ruling a momentous victory for the Mail and its journalists, while the publisher described it as an overwhelming win.
Harry and Lawrence denounced the verdict as a cover-up. The defeat follows the Duke of Sussex's successful 2023 case against Mirror Group Newspapers and a settlement with Rupert Murdoch's UK papers in early 2025.