Duke of Sussex & Others vs ANL: thread 6

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

Judgement was handed down by Judge Nicklin on 7th July 2026.
All claims were dismissed.
Links to the summary and full judgement are below.
We are currently awaiting decisions around costs, following the Consequentials hearing on 29-30th July.

The threads to date were thorough discussions of the evidence (so far as we were able to obtain it), with posters giving links and explaining their views.
Following the judgement, we discussed the judgement itself, the reaction, statements made by different parties and ongoing relevant issues.

We have mostly kept things civil by avoiding more general discussion on Royal Family members, which can become partisan, and trying not to be derailed from the main topic of the thread.

We have occasionally 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.

Links to previous threads
Thread 1
Thread 2
Thread 3
Thread 4
Thread 5

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

Summary judgement

Full judgement

I don’t think even EJ has £9.5m sitting in an account.

I was thinking this. It must take a bit of time to release this amount of money even if you do have it sitting liquid in an account.

What I could see is EJ loaning the money to other claimants and being paid back over a period of years.

He won't get it back. The ones who can't afford it can't pay off millions, even in instalments.

I also read that a rep from the insurance firm was at court every single day

where did you read this?

But what would Meghan do after splitting up from Harry? At this point, surely only her most deluded supporters can still believe that she could make a success of any projects without her royal adjacency. She's pretty much the kiss of death to any project she gets involved with even with her royal adjacency.

And Harry might be able to pay it back but would no doubt be extremely reluctant to do so. EJ would be crazy to trust him to pay what he owes.

Go back to acting?

She may not have been the most famous actress on the planet, but she was earning a living.

I was thinking too, surely the insurance (even if they did pay it) wouldn't pay it within the next 7 days. So someone has to cough up, because the ruling is payment on account of £9.5m by next week, not £9.5m split 5 ways.

I can imagine their whatsapp group (see what i did there?) is on fire this afternoon with the arguments of who's paying what.

People in it could probably raise the money by selling screenshots and leaks. That would be ironic.

I’m wondering what the other claimants think / thought about Harry and Doreen slagging off the judgement now?

It is clear that the judge is quite rightly angry about it even though he makes clear he does not hold all claimants jointly responsible for it.

In saying that I read that that if all the claimants had joined Harry and Doreen in this ill judged pronouncement it certainly would have been yet another negative factor and increased the costs they face.

No matter what the judge says today I am sure trying to smear a judge’s professional reputation by calling his decision a “whitewash” is most unlikely to foster any remaining sliver of sympathy.

Are the claimants now going to turn against Harry? I am presuming that their feelings about Doreen are irrelevant if she is not actually going to be paying anything but I would hope that under the circumstances every possible penny is clawed out of Harry’s mangy paw.

I also think Doreen should have to pay but obviously if she has an agreement that with Harry will never happen.

Whilst I don’t think he is at all trustworthy (see betraying his family for profit etc) she is probably worth more to him in PR than the saving made in wiggling out of the arrangement.

Haw can she go back to acting? She could have had a successful career as a character actress but not being A-list. Now she’s “The Duchess” and that overshadows everything. There is no way she can fade into another role, everything will always be judged on her title and then publicity she courted. She’s naive to think any casting would be because of talent and not a grab at her name.

ETA - there’s no way she could be a big enough name actor to earn the millions to pay these kinds of bills

The likes of sherborn will have documentation, cast iron, signed and sealed that they were advised and they were determined to go ahead. The judge warned them several times of the risks should they go ahead and lose and lose they did, they lost huge.

MM is stuck in a very sticky spot. When she was an actress she was a Jill Halfpenny level actress. Recognizable, not bad, but not about to star in a blockbuster movie. And she did well at that level, talented enough to pull it off.

Now shes infamous, everyone knows who she is. She cant go back to the small roles because she will have egg on her face, and she doesn't have the talent or the skills to be acting in Netflix/Prime/HBO series or big budget movies. You cant deny fan or not that she brings bad press to everything she touches.

What can she honestly do acting wise at this point. Reality TV - she was like watching the grass grow, Talk shows - you have to be good with people, Netlfix - burned that bridge and collected the ashes for the mantle shelf. Are we talking SCD at this point or BBC Three documentaries. Shes sure as hell not about to be in the next series of Bridgerton.

@ThatCyanCat EJ and others knew this was coming. They will have made sure funds were available. It’s no surprise.

Ive read that she wants to star in a West End show 🤣🤣🤣

Stop getting ANL wrong!!!!

Maybe a satirical comedy based on the Markles' freedom flight and years in Montecito could work? I read the famous Cut article for the first time earlier (thanks to whoever shared it!) and it was absolutely hilarious

Do they still do those Open University demonstrations at 5am on weekend mornings “Take two test tubes…” or QVC?

@EmpressSisi Why? It’s been touted very widely that it could be. It’s in line with what many legal people thought. They went ahead with mostly flimsy claims and two of them then rubbished the judge.

I thought it was interesting they listed Harry, Doreen and Elton in that order.

ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS' STATEMENT IN FULL
In another overwhelming victory for the Mail and its journalism, the High Court today ruled that Prince Harry, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Elton John and other claimants would have to pay the Mail’s legal costs on an “indemnity basis” – a rare legal procedure deployed when a case has been pursued in an improper way. The Mail’s legal costs are £35m.

Mr Justice Nicklin ruled that the way legal teams for Prince Harry and the other claimants ran the case was “unreasonable to a high degree”, and that “allegations of the utmost seriousness were advanced before the evidential foundation for many of them had been established”.

His judgment is a devastating critique of an attempt to destroy a newspaper and the reputations of its journalists, editors and executives.

From well before the trial started, the claimants’ lawyers knew that their main witness had denied making the preposterous allegations on which the claims were based.

Despite this collapse in evidence to support the extremely serious allegations of “abhorrent criminal activity, crimes and terrible and reprehensible covert acts” by the Mail, they were emblazoned in a lurid press release issued on behalf of Baroness Lawrence, Prince Harry and the other claimants, with the exception of Sir Simon Hughes. The allegations were not withdrawn, and were pursued until the bitter end of the trial.

This placed a huge burden on the Mail to defend the reputations of its innocent journalists and the paper itself.

The truth is that these outrageous claims should never have been brought. That they were pursued raises disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession.

Of the most profound concern, however, is that Mr Justice Nicklin’s ruling confirms that those behind this action against the Mail pursued the claims as part of “a coordinated media and litigation campaign designed to drag (the Mail) into the spotlight, challenge its position at the Leveson Inquiry, and use legal claims as part of a broader campaign” to resuscitate Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry.

This case was a vital element in an insidious strategy by the newspaper-hating zealots of Hacked Off, using fascist, orgy-loving Max Mosley’s millions, and support from Hugh Grant to impose statutory regulation on the press as a whole.

In Mr Justice Nicklin’s judgment last month, not a single one of the 97 allegations made against the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday was upheld.

We thank Mr Justice Nicklin for the care he has taken over this application, and throughout the litigation. The Mail has worked continuously for the past four and a half years to defend the reputations of its hard-working and honest journalists against smears that date back three decades and would have destroyed their

Has she ever done any professional stage work?

I feel people vastly overestimate how much money celebrities have at their disposable. Whenever media do their "estimated worth" for people, it's often absurdly overblown, often just for entertainment sake. To actually have double digits of post-tax money worth millions sitting in your bank account is virtually unheard of, even for ultra high net worth individuals.

The entertainment industry is also very fickle because someone could have been earning millions at one point but that fizzles out extremely quickly and they still have their living costs to pay. Contracts are also far less lucrative than many people think. H&M were essentially in the same business with their Netflix and Spotify projects. But once everyone has been paid, a million dollar deal is often meaningless.

Out of all the people, only EJ possibly has the liquidity. Everyone else is fucked. Can't say I feel very sorry for them. A bunch of geedy, has-been 00s tabloid slebs riding on their own egos and thinking the public still care who they are. I bet 95% of GenZ have never heard of a single one of them.

If Meghan ever split from Harry she would negotiate a hefty settlement. Then write a book.

Unless the settlement was big enough to silence her from writing a book.

I think there’s still haggling to be done over the final balance payable. Simon Hughes is taking time to consider an appeal. He was a total idiot for getting involved in the first place!

Will the legal insurance pay?

Don't they have grounds to deny any insurance claim given that H and friends went on with lawsuit despite knowing that their key witness had changed his story?

Can someone with legal expertise clarify? Thanks in advance!

Whatever money M may or may not make from acting/writing a book, it will not come soon enough to pay H's costs. It would be a shame if this excellent thread becomes yet another one on 'H&M moving to the UK' - there are plenty of those already.