LONDON — The High Court in London on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Prince Harry and six other people in a privacy case against The Daily Mail, a tabloid published in the United Kingdom.
The other plaintiffs in the case brought against Associated Newspapers Limited included singer Elton John and actress Elizabeth Hurley, the BBC reported. John’s husband, David Furness, campaigner Doreen Lawrence, actress Sadie Frost and former politician Simon Hughes also were claimants, according to CNN.
According to the summary by the High Court, “The Court rejected the attempt to prove the claims by broad inference where there remained a legitimate and realistic possible lawful source pathway, or where the article-specific evidence did not prove that the relevant information must have been obtained unlawfully.”
The Duke of Sussex and the other claimants accused The Daily Mail’s publisher of unlawful information gathering, including “abhorrent criminal activity and gross breaches of privacy,” Deadline reported.
In a statement, Associated Newspapers Limited called the ruling an “overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists.”
“This is a magnificent vindication of the Daily Mail’s journalism,” a spokesperson for the newspaper said. “The reputations of our decent and hard-working journalists were terribly impugned, and today they have been exonerated.
“As the judgment clearly shows, every single article was legitimately sourced.”
The court heard claims from the plaintiffs that the Daily Mail’s publisher had allegedly engaged in several illegal activities, CNN reported. They included hiring private investigators to engage in voicemail interception, phone tapping and “blagging” of sensitive private records through deception.
Prince Harry was in the United Kingdom for the verdict, Deadline reported. He was also back in the country for the Invictus Games.
The Duke of Sussex had given evidence during the trial earlier this year accusing Associated Newspapers of making the life of his wife, Meghan Markle, "a misery."
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