Duke of Sussex & Others vs ANL: thread 4

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This is the fourth thread discussing the case Prince Harry (and 6 others) brought against the Daily Mail (Associated Newspapers Limited; ANL) for alleged unlawful information gathering (UIG).

The claimants are: Prince Harry (PH); Doreen Lawrence (DL); Liz Hurley (EH/LH); Elton John (EJ); David Furnish (DF); Simon Hughes (SH); Sadie Frost (SF).
They are represented by David Sherborne (DS).
The defendant (ANL) is represented by Anthony White (AMW).

The threads to date have been thorough discussions of the evidence (so far as we were able to obtain it), with posters giving links and explaining their views. We have mostly kept things civil by avoiding partisan discussions on specific Royal Family members, and trying not to be derailed from the topic of court proceedings.
The case has concluded and we are now awaiting the judgement from Judge Nicklin.

We have also included (when things slowed with the title case) other cases or discussions with a specific theme of free speech/press freedom, particularly when related to those with money or power preventing others from speaking.

One current ongoing case is that involving @GwendolineFairfax8 - some details towards the end of thread 3.
The case is in court this week and is likely to be reported on at the end of the week.

Links to previous threads

Thread 1

Thread 2

Thread 3

There was limited direct reporting from court after the celebrities gave evidence; what there we followed on this link
Sky news link to court case

I’ve just been prepping dinner nd thinking about some of the excellent posts I have read on this thread.
Someone (sorry can’t credit )on this thread mentioned the Damiola/Lawrence £200 payment and Doreen Lawrence immediately thought it was her.
How fuckimg presumptive is she?
Clearly the death of the (headmaster? Teacher) Philip Lawrence didn’t affect her so she never considered it. Frances was Philip’s wife (from memory).
I did feel sorry for DL but after having g that penny drop moment and reading the fantastic eviscerating statement by Paul Dacre I have no pity for her with regards to this action. None at all.
And I need to say -the Daily Mail gets horrendous flack on here but some of the things it has revealed with some superb journalism needs to be considered.

Here is a share token for the article in The Times:

www.thetimes.com/article/40ae7568-a145-4856-8de0-f97b98c5523a?shareToken=17652411ddc58ec12ccc42a12c1d9aa3

Please can I ask about the Doreen Lawrence reference and Philip Lawrence? Was there some mix up?

I am totally confused. Has the judge awarded costs and if so how much and to whom? I read somewhere he had remarks on the grossly inflated costs and had put some sort of ceiling. If true how would that work? Could some kind soul please put me out of my misery?

I also wasn't aware of the 4.5m cap as mentioned up thread, Indeed I thought there was a warning from the Judge about the spiralling costs before it started.

I've not seen any source for this '4.5 m cap'. Granted I've not got a clue how these things work but ANL spoke of £50m. Even if realistically they won't get all their costs repaid, 4.5 m seems ridiculously low. This was a months long case with 7 claimants, so there's no way 4.5 m could cover it. Why should ANL be out of pocket for a case which they did not choose and was comprehensively dismissed?

What is the source of the £4.5 million costs cap? That doesn’t sound right for this level of litigation, especially for a defendant which is not responsible for it. I have read that the DM’s costs are £50 million which is crazy but then the litigation has been rumbling on for many years with extremely well resourced claimants and the evidence dates back to many years ago. Consequentials hearing not listed yet.

Even Paul Dacre’s referring to Harry as a young man. He’s 41!

Earl Spencer must have missed the memo that Dacre and Diana were friends, or he wouldn't have withdrawn his invite to the funeral along with the rest of the tabloid editors.

Thank you @ThatSillyViper

The main issue is that the bulk of the decision is based on the judge’s findings of facts - he heard all the evidence and determined that the claimants had not met the required standard of proof. Appellate courts are not keen to disturb a judge’s findings on facts unless something has gone seriously wrong, which seems unlikely to be able to be established here.

(Also, if they are looking for funding the costs of an appeal they’d have to be able to demonstrate they have good prospects of success. That also seems unlikely here, so the claimants may have little appetite for throwing their own money at an application for permission to appeal).

The cost cap was referred to in one of the pre-trial hearings as the Judge found the costs ridiculous.
https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/planned-costs-of-harry-and-mail-publisher-legal-battle-excessive-judges-rule/

However, I'm not sure the insurance they took out covers their own legal costs or just the costs awarded to ANL? I think I read somewhere it was an adverse policy.

So this leaves the claimants potentially with a bill off £20-30 million to pay Barrister Bouffant and the other lawyers before any costs are awarded to ANL-

Basically one of DL’s arguments was that a payment by the Mail for £200 with the reference Danilola/Lawrence - was evidence that the Mail had unlawfully gathered information relating to the 320k settlement she negotiated with the Met Police.

The payment in question was 8 weeks after the article she was complaining about and related directly to another article (which was published) about Frances Lawrence and Danilola Taylor.

Reading the judgment there’s a lot of this where a random payment (generally with no description whatsoever) is made to a PI, often not even near the time of the article in question, and is used as evidence by the claimants that it proves UIG by the Mail as the source of the article.

Thanks for that.

Still, today ANL referred to the case costing £50m so I wonder what really went on? Very hard to see how a case of this magnitude could have 'only' cost 4.5m.

As for insurance, I doubt it would cover the claimants' own legal costs as that's a known expense, not a 'risk'. And if they're like any other insurance provider, they'll be going through the case with a fine tooth comb to find any excuse to not pay out!

Thanks for sharing this.

Very keen to get input from someone who knows how these things may work in reality. With the cap imposed does that really mean ANL can’t get more than £4.5m off the claimants? It seems very unfair given they’ve been forced to defend themselves that they should bear the vast majority of their legal bill.

I assume no such cap will apply to Sherborne’s own costs so the claimants will have to pay him out in full?

And how might that work with the insurance? Would that cover them for amounts over and above the cap?

@Serenster before this all went to witnesses on stands does a Judge/Court not look at a case & decide if the whole claim has standing?

What an utter waste of court time.
What will happen if some of the claimants refuse/can't pay in the event insurance is voided?
What a mess these people now find themselves in....

Joint statement from Harry and Doreen Lawrence

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"We came to Court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither. This judgment represents a complete reversal of the position which previous Judges have taken in relation to the hacking claims successfully brought against both News Group Newspapers and Mirror Group Newspapers (who were represented by, at the time, the Judge who made this decision).

Generic findings about various private investigators that were held by the Courts in these parallel claims to have carried out unlawful activity at the very same time in relation to similar stories and well-known individuals have been wholly ignored. The fact that this Court has chosen to dismiss them represents an inconsistency which is hard to understand or reconcile with common sense, or the evidence heard in the court room itself.

It is a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected. However, the lengths to which the Court has gone to exonerate the Mail is as shocking as it is totally unwarranted.

When the Court says there is not sufficient evidence of wrongdoing, despite the documents showing otherwise, then one does wonder how justice was ever going to be achieved. One need not look past when a private investigator the Mail used actually admitted on tape to having unlawfully blagged Baroness Lawrence, or when a journalist recorded the name of the private investigators she used to find out about highly sensitive medical information (that even the Mail was too worried to publish) or when another private investigator emailed one of the journalists with the actual British Airways seat number and ticketing details for a young girl simply visiting her boyfriend in return for payment.
It feels here like one rule for the newspapers and another for the claimants. While the Claimants presented evidence, Mail journalists simply gave denials, and the Court chose uncritically to believe them, even in the face of inconsistencies, contradictions and blatant untruths that were obvious to neutral observers in Court when compared to the documents.

We presented to the Court evidence which we believed was compelling at the time and and remains so now.

We would like to thank our legal team for all their hard work and all the witnesses who were brave enough to came forward in the pursuit of justice.

Interesting comment from Dacre re. incoming scrutiny of certain parts of the legal profession. Love to know who he's referring to!

Costs are going to be discussed at a hearing in late July.

No idea where the £4.5m cap has come from.

Given the judgement I’d expect ANL to go in hard to re-claim as much as they can.

I think there was an expectation from the claimants that ANL would settle - this is just my reading of the case - and have played (and lost) a dangerous game of brinksmanship, buoyed up by their individual and collective grievances plus ambitious (said carefully) legal representation.

There are clearly claimants (such as EJ) who can weather the hit (though it will hurt) if costs also go against them - but there are potentially very serious consequences for other claimants who have less resources (assuming they didn’t take out insurance).

It is a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected. However, the lengths to which the Court has gone to exonerate the Mail is as shocking as it is totally unwarranted.

Just as predicted.

It's all an establishment stitch up. Wow.

And why is Harry partnering with DL? Why not with, say, Sadie Frost? Because he thinks she provides some sort of 'moral veneer'?

Shambles.

Have I read that statement correctly? Have they implied the judge was biased against them?

This judgment represents a complete reversal of the position which previous Judges have taken in relation to the hacking claims successfully brought against both News Group Newspapers and Mirror Group Newspapers (who were represented by, at the time, the Judge who made this decision).

Have I read that statement correctly? Have they implied the judge was biased against them?

Yes you have and yes they did.

There was a costs management order made in January last year as part as a case management conference to progress the case to trial.

The process involves the Court approving and setting a budget for the costs of the litigation. A party is free to to spend more than the budget permits on the litigation – but they are then unlikely to be able to recover more than the budgeted costs if another party is ordered to pay their costs.

The parties filed their accounts of the costs they had incurred to date, and those estimated to get to the end of the trial. Together they totalled £38.8 million and the court considered that this amount was “manifestly excessive” and disproportionate. The parties were asked to go away and agree more realistic estimates, but could not, and so the court made a costs management order. That went through all the sums considered reasonable for work still to be done, and approved total budgeted costs of £4,084,000 for the Claimants and
£4,445,000 for the Defendant.

I have inked to the order below. It should be noted though that these figures were the budget for future costs. The total costs of the Mail at the point this order was made was already just under £6m - so they can claim at least a total of £10.3m of their own costs. If they argue they are due indemnity costs, they could try to claim their actual costs.

https://assets.caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/kb/2025/106/ewhc_kb_2025_106.pdf

Wow. Is that actionable? I guess not but it feels unwise.

On another note, a lot of that statement seems to be "other court cases went against the newspapers, so it's really unfair this one didn't too".

What a disgraceful statement. Both Harry and Baroness Lawrence would do well to remember that each case stands and falls on its own evidence. What happens in other cases against other defendants is not relevant.