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

Thank you again @Scrambledbeans - appreciate your work in laying it all out.

A question that occur to me when I see the connections laid out like that
Was there one guiding force coordinating things? One person (or a few people) who kept things going behind the scenes, pushed when things slowed down?

The conclusion here is again of a 'self-reinforcing eco-system', with a comment above that the 'convergence was functional rather than necessarily coordinated'. I think my question remains.
Do we think it was functional rather than coordinated just because we don't know who might have been doing the coordinating?
We know that MM was coordinating the campaign against ANL (Harris was reporting back to him) - was he involved with other parts of the ecosystem too?

I would also be very interested (in case you felt like doing some other deep digging - feel free to say 'No!') in what links these people or groups have with the people that we know PH is linked to with similar interests (CCDH / Morgan McSweeney / Labour Together).
Hugh Grant is obviously already lobbying Andy Burnham.

@bluegreygreen Matbe it’s the settings! But there’s a lot of scrolling needed but hopefully no more and back to debate.

Has Harry been able to get far more involved and be a talisman as he stepped back from Royal duties? If there’s a campaign for anything in this country, movers and shakers are involved !

I suspect it becomes a bit of an echo chamber, people who disagree end up avoiding the subject or being cut off as supporting the enemy. So it becomes self reinforcing

Thank you @Scrambledbeans, I will need to re read to fully understand.

That is so interesting, thanks so much for collating it, it’s very interesting that they didn’t stress test each others findings and evidence

Is there anymore about the funding behind Temple. is this another way to fund cases ? Or is it an arms length commercial transaction

@Justdancevance Temple filed accounts on 7 August. I don’t quite see how they are anything other than they say they are. It’s all a bit conspiracy theory.

You can “fund” a case in a variety of ways. Pay yourself. Get a rich mate or “charity” to fund it for you. Get the barristers and solicitors to work for free - pro bono. They do this when it’s a very important case and the people involved could never pay. Get no win no fee deal - as Harry did we believe. Get legal aid but obviously not applicable here. Main one - don’t get obsessed about something and evaluate the chances of winning accurately.

This has been an incredibly enjoyable thread but I assume we are adults and policing postings is unnecessary.

The Independent is saying the claimants paid the £9.5m by the deadline.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/prince-harry-daily-mail-legal-fees-payment-b3043496.html

Thanks autumn ! , that’s something, I don’t suppose we will ever find out if he paid his security case costs ?

I suppose that info might be traceable via an FoI request? But not sure.

I’m too busy ( lazy ) to care enough to do that unfortunately 😁

Thanks @AutumnCrowOfTheBailey

Archive link https://archive.is/8sAnh

No news yet as to whether anyone is considering an appeal, then.

When does the appeal window close?

IIRC Simon Hughes was muttering about appealing but I don't know if he'd actually do it or have the money

In terms of the filing deadline in October I think this is for permission even to submit an appeal. I seriously doubt the court would grant permission even if such a filing were to be submitted. The Nicklin rulings have been absolutely meticulous both in addressing the substance and evidentiary support for the claims (or total lack of substance and any supporting evidence) and meticulous in addressing the shocking conduct of the claimants. I think appeal here would be as close to impossible as it gets.

In terms of the total costs we know that ANL are rightly pursuing every penny back that they had to spend to defend themselves. I hope that we will get some confirmation of a judgement for a total costs award. We know the interim payment was made on time probably by the insurer, but I hope the uninsured portion of the costs makes the claimants seriously squirm.

Yes, October is for permission to appeal.

The timeline:
The Court has set a timetable for any application(s) for permission to appeal in respect of the decisions of 7 July 2026 and today. Any request for permission to appeal must be filed by 2 October 2026. Unless the Court considers that a hearing is required, any application for permission to appeal will be determined by the Judge on the written papers. The deadline for filing any Appellant’s Notice with the Court of Appeal has been extended to 6 November 2026.

I can't see any chance of an application being successful either, @MauveLibrary, but I don't necessarily think the same way as the claimants do.

This is why I scan all the main news media websites most days! You never know what someone has picked up on.

Have also been checking, but probably not as thoroughly as you ☺️

@Lunde Harry and DL don’t trust British Justice so presumably won’t appeal! Or try to appeal. There must be grounds and it’s difficult to know what they might be. Not liking the verdict because it’s not the one you wanted isn’t enough.

I think Harry probably would appeal so that he could make more dragonslayer 🐉 speeches on the steps of the Court of Appeal. However I doubt if he would get leave to appeal nor would anyone be prepared to help him with costs this time or insure him for an appeal.

@Lunde Hopefully no appeal, I agree.

Interesting article in the law pages of the Times today about the future of cases against newspapers. The writer felt rich people may well think twice and bringing cases based on intuition is not a sufficient argument in court. Ths risk of indemnity costs being awarded is too high because of how such a case must be conducted. That doesn’t mean cases of illegal info gathering should not be brought but this case was not about that. Did anyone else see it?

That sounds interesting, @MeetMeOnTheCorner.

Can you (or anyone else) share it?

That article reads to me like there will be no grounds for appeal for the ANL case and that this is a line in the sand for any future cases.

Here's a share

https://www.thetimes.com/article/53aeeda6-5f98-46bb-ac93-d96c04e504eb?shareToken=f0bb2d3b04b0284984b60d7a6273b28c

It is interesting but completely fails to address the complete lack if evidence on the part of the claimants so for me at least a lot of it's points fail to hit home.

Yes it's expensive and the are some interesting technical and legal issues raised but if your case at its heart is bollocks then you can't really expect to win and you can expect to pay, as we now see.