Duke of Sussex & Others v ANL: thread 2

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This is a continuation of the discussion on the previous thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_royal_family/5443044-duke-of-sussex-court-case-key-witness-statement-false?page=1

We are following the court case on the

The timeline is interesting. Harry was clearly recruited to the group by Sherborne in 2019. It's publicly reported that up until then he was bringing joint action with William against NGN - presumably the information he was given convinced one but not the other.

I think that all took a different approach from the exchanges read online. PH seems to regard it as a campaign rather than giving evidence as he dragged in the kitchen sink and got told off by the judge. The answers from LH and SF seemed very actressy when the sobbed about minor events from 25 years ago but snapped out of it and became hard/stroppy when the weakest bits of their cases were tested. SH seems to be treating it as a debate in the House of Commons (well he was an MP for 32 years)

What I find interesting is them using identical phrases as I would not expect that of such a disparate group - are they things that they have been told to emphasize?

I've just been reading this article in the Spectator about Graham Johnson, who is the main investigator and runs the Bylines Investigator website. The article is from 2023, so written at the time of one of Harry's previous cases.
I can't remember where I found it - if it was on the previous thread, apologies for the repetition.

It has some detail about why many of the cases have not been defended (any comments on this from legal people welcome), and also details how GJ has gone about getting evidence. A couple of interesting extracts:

what’s certain is that Graham Johnson’s methods of gathering evidence against the three newspaper groups has been highly questionable. People who are vulnerable and hard-up have been given money, book deals and the promise of fame in exchange for essentially telling him what he wants to hear. Were a tabloid to behave like that today, heads would roll. Even a source associated with Hacked Off acknowledges that ‘Graham has not behaved well’.

In his memoir about the art of selling lies, Johnson writes about the ‘manufacture of consent’ – if you invent a story and the other person wants to believe it, there’s an unspoken deal.

https://archive.is/pX8QL

That's a very good observation @Lunde

William settled with the Sun and rumour has it got £1 million compensation (donated to charity) + legal fees as I doubt William wanted this type of circus.

Harry has always disparaged William for settling - referred to it as a "secret agreement" in his action against NGN - yet settlements are always confidential and Harry settled some of his cases

The "research team" and investigators working for the claimants would appear to give the NoTW a run for their money for dubious practices and "cash for witnesses"

Yes, William settled with NGN in 2020 but that information was not known until Harry revealed it in his court case in 2023.

Harry himself settled with NGN in January 2025.

Harry loves to blab everyone else's private information 🙄

He is probably the source of many of the stories he is complaining about 🙄

From what I remember he denied it once, when.put on the spot. He was asked frequently (and unreasonably) over the years and always refused to answer. It was irrelevant to his political views, and used in a homophobic way, to.undermine him.

I knew members of the Labour Party in Exeter wete very pissed off to find out Ben Bradshaw was gay after being selected as their candidate. Not, they hastened to say (this was all in private) because THEY were homophobic, but because they thought the electorate was... that was only 10 years before the Simon Hughes situation. When gay marriage still didn't exist, and a candidate's sexuality was very much a political hot potato, and ambitious gay politicians tried to hide their sexuality (Mark Oaten...).

Of course as soon as he was 'outed' the interview where he denied it was used to say he was dishonest. Whereas he was asked over and over again in situations where it was irrelevant to the topic being discussed.

Still answering questions about the same email the court was shown before lunch (see 13.19 post), Sir Simon Hughes says he was first alerted to a "work in progress" on a prospective claim at the beginning of March 2019.
Asked if that work had been going on without his knowledge, he says: "That's correct".
Antony White KC asks: "Don't you find that extraordinary?"
But the ex-Lib Dem MP says it wasn't surprising because Dr Evan Harris and others working for campaign group Hacked Off were seeking to establish accountability by the press for many people who had allegedly been unlawfully targeted.
"Until the time they were ready to share what they thought was a good case they had been doing it without me," Sir Simon says.
He tells the court that if he were to make a claim it would be when "I had personally looked at the evidence" and taken legal advice. This came later in 2022, he says.
Reminder: This all matters because a major argument in Associated Newspapers Limited's defence is that the seven claimants in the trial waited too long before bringing their case in October 2022 and could have reasonably found they had a claim before this.
However, the claimants say they did not discover they had a potential case until this time.

Antony White KC suggests Sir Simon Hughes has known since 2016 that claims against the publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday were being developed with the knowledge of his solicitor.
Sir Simon denies the suggestion.
White then puts it to him that other claimants' lawyers were involved, with other potential claimants being approached and recruited, which Sir Simon denies knowledge of.
The judge, Mr Justice Nicklin, then issues a warning to Sir Simon Hughes that he doesn't have to answer any questions that might incriminate him, before he is shown a 11 July 2019 email entitled "Daily Mail hacking".

I’m back! , it’s getting quite interesting!

The judge, Mr Justice Nicklin, then issues a warning to Sir Simon Hughes that he doesn't have to answer any questions that might incriminate him

Always a good sign ...

Wow SH gets a self-incrimination warning from the judge!

The next portion of questioning is focused on the 11 July 2019 email we've just referred to in our previous post.
Here's the full text of the email, from Dr Evan Harris to Sir Simon Hughes, titled "Daily Mail hacking":
As you know MMT [Mark Thomson] is progressing your Sun claim and – hopefully – keeping me in the loop.
That will be done as a group with Coogs, Hugh G, Sienna, Gazza and others so you will not be the main story (despite your obvious celebrity!).
The Mail hacking claims are being developed, and will be ready to launch soon. To deter the Mail from arguing "limitation" (ie you knew about this 6 years ago) Atkins Thomson think it best for stories to be written in Byline which can be referred as the basis for claims being raised.
Graham – copied in – has already done a number of Mail stories which can be found here https://www.bylineinvestigates.com/mail. The hacking ones are listed under "voiceMail" (gerrit?!).
These include stories on Sadie Frost and Heather Mills He has written a story on your Mail case (from public domain and legally sourced material) to follow in the series. It is his approach to check with the target of the Mail the text of the story in case you have ways you rather it was phrased.
I have asked him to send you the draft after it has been legalled. Of course, it is not ideal to re- air these matters but the website is not one that the papers care to report from, so there is very little visibility. The virtue is that it puts the material into the public domain which will help the litigation.

😱 but doesn’t that sound illegal? , does that not mean their case is over?

Full text of 11 July 2019 email
The next portion of questioning is focused on the 11 July 2019 email we've just referred to in our previous post.
Here's the full text of the email, from Hacked Off campaigner Dr Evan Harris to Sir Simon Hughes, titled "Daily Mail hacking":
As you know MMT [Mark Thomson] is progressing your Sun claim and – hopefully – keeping me in the loop.
That will be done as a group with Coogs, Hugh G, Sienna, Gazza and others so you will not be the main story (despite your obvious celebrity!).
The Mail hacking claims are being developed, and will be ready to launch soon. To deter the Mail from arguing "limitation" (ie you knew about this 6 years ago) Atkins Thomson think it best for stories to be written in Byline which can be referred as the basis for claims being raised.
Graham – copied in – has already done a number of Mail stories which can be found here https://www.bylineinvestigates.com/mail. The hacking ones are listed under "voiceMail" (gerrit?!).
These include stories on Sadie Frost and Heather Mills He has written a story on your Mail case (from public domain and legally sourced material) to follow in the series. It is his approach to check with the target of the Mail the text of the story in case you have ways you rather it was phrased.
I have asked him to send you the draft after it has been legalled. Of course, it is not ideal to re- air these matters but the website is not one that the papers care to report from, so there is very little visibility. The virtue is that it puts the material into the public domain which will help the litigation.

The fulltext also implicates SF as well as SH in using Byline news to create a false timeline

Surely this means that the case has to end?

they are completely fucked, and will they pull the others down with them.

It sounds criminal too, is it ?

It is 7 separate cases - so it may just mean his case (or his and SF's) falls.

Do we know who exactly byline times rehashed the stories about? Or hasn’t that been released.

Hence the warning from the judge about incriminating himself

Suggestion to deter Mail publisher making limitation argument 'improper', ex-MP says
Sir Simon Hughes is being questioned about the following line in the 11 July 2019 email to him (read the full text in our previous post):
To deter the Mail from arguing "limitation" (ie you knew about this 6 years ago) Atkins Thomson think it best for stories to be written in Byline which can be referred as the basis for claims being raised.
He says: "I wouldn't, as a matter of principle, countenance anything based on this kind of argument."
Asked why, he says it would be "improper".
Antony White KC, for Associated Newspapers Ltd, suggests the objective was to deter the Mail's publisher from making an argument on limitation - that the claim was brought too late - by falsely pretending the 2020 Byline article had first made Sir Simon aware of the situation.
The former MP says it's "not anything I would support" and he "certainly would not countenance" doing this.
White suggests he would only need such a deterrence if he had been aware of the relevant facts for some time, and reiterates that he only saw evidence in 2022.
"There was nothing in my mind then or subsequently that would lead me to think my claim would be subject to an argument it was time limited," he says.
White says that when that suggestion was made, he would've been "very concerned".
But Sir Simon says he hasn't tried to find out who gave that advice at his solicitors' firm Atkins Thomson.
He says it wasn't something "I agreed with then or would've agreed with" so wasn't an issue that needed to be investigated at that time.
The court is then shown another 11 July email from Graham Johnson about three draft articles, including one summarised:
Killer emails between Britain's most prolific phone hacking operation and the Mail on Sunday evidence a criminal conspiracy.
Sir Simon says he didn't look in detail at the articles, which didn't appear for a year and the evidence to back it up didn't come until 2022.

Oh dear! , I thought white seemed confident and not particularly bothered about questioning the witnesses! He obviously knew all about this evidence.