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HARRY AND SIX OTHERS SHOULD GET 'SUBSTANTIAL' DAMAGES FROM PUBLISHER, JUDGE TOLD
about:blank Nina Massey
By Nina Massey, Press Association Law Correspondent
817 words
27 March 2026
16:01
Press Association National Newswire
PRESSA
English
(c)2026, The Press Association, All Rights Reserved
The High Court should make a "substantial award of damages" to the Duke of Sussex and six others in their unlawful information-gathering claim against the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, lawyers for the group have said.
Harry, Sir Elton John, Baroness Doreen Lawrence and others are suing about:blank Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over the allegations, which include the use of private investigators to carry out unlawful acts such as blagging.
The publisher strongly denies the claims, saying it had a "culture of professionalism and discipline".
On Friday, lawyers for the group of household names started their closing arguments in the trial, which started on January 19.
In written submissions, David Sherborne, who is representing the group, said each of the claimants, who also include David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, and actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, had "made good his or her claim".
He continued: "The unlawful acts were carried out by a range of characters: professional private investigators, some individuals who acted also as freelance journalists, and the defendant's journalists themselves.
"The acts also range across types of activity, and along a spectrum of seriousness."
He continued: "All are unlawful, and all offend the private lives of those at whom they are targeted.
"The defendant has never accepted responsibility for a single such act.
"This striking position has been maintained throughout the trial."
The barrister also told the court in London that the evidence of ANL's witnesses was in "a great many cases not relevant, or simply entirely ineffectual because they claimed not to remember anything material".
He added that around 70% of the claims come down to the work of four journalists and there was "incontrovertible evidence that each of them habitually commissioned UIG ((unlawful information gathering)".
Mr Sherborne said in the case of each article, the responsible individual at ANL "knew or must have known that the information was unlawfully or illegally obtained".
He added that as a result of allegedly unlawful articles, Lady Lawrence feels a sense of "profound betrayal", Ms Hurley has a clear sense of "violation", and Sir Elton and Mr Furnish "feel that their home, and the safety of their children and loved ones, has been violated".
In relation to Harry, he said the duke set out his "shock and horror" that ANL has used its "journalistic power and privilege to commit unlawful acts against him without any legitimate justification and in order to compete with other tabloid newspapers for profit".
Mr Sherborne concluded: "The court is invited to make a substantial award of damages, including aggravated damages, in respect of each of the claimants for misuse of their private information, and, in the case of Baroness Lawrence, for breach of confidence."
In written submissions for ANL, Antony White KC said the claim had been conceived by press reform about:blank campaign group Hacked Off, as a "political campaign", and that the publisher had mounted a "robust and comprehensive" defence.
He also told the court that the evidence of private investigator Gavin Burrows means that "the most serious of the claimants' allegations, and the basis upon which Ms Hurley, Sir Elton John and Mr Furnish, the Duke of Sussex and Baroness Lawrence had been persuaded by the claimants' legal representatives and research team to join the group claim, have effectively fallen away".
Last week, the court heard that Mr Burrows allegedly said in a witness statement in August 2021 that he targeted "hundreds, possibly thousands of people", including members of the group, through voicemail hacking, landline tapping and accessing financial and medical information for a journalist at the Mail on Sunday.
But Mr Burrows has since denied ever conducting unlawful information gathering on behalf of ANL and said that his purported signature on the 2021 statement was forged.
Mr White added that what was left of the claimants' case "was addressed and met by an impressive queue of diverse witnesses" who came forward, out of retirement in some cases, to "defend their legitimately sourced articles".
Mr White said: "These witnesses, together with the substantial number who were not cross-examined by the claimants, completely dispelled any suggestion of habitual and widespread unlawful information gathering by Associated targeting the claimants."
Referring to the allegations made by Harry, the barrister said the duke was "inclined to see unlawful evidence gathering, in particular voicemail interception, everywhere".
He added that the claims were "without any foundation" and that "the evidence at trial has shown that the information in the articles was sourced conventionally from a mix of contacts of the journalists responsible".
Mr White concluded that the claims "fail on the merits" and had also been brought too late.
The trial before Mr Justice Nicklin is due to conclude on Tuesday, with a judgment in writing expected at a later date.
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