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

You are spot on. A monkey could have won Coleen Rooney’s case. Interestingly, Charlotte Harris and Rosa Malley were acting for Rebekah Vardy - both connected to Hacked Off connected to David Sherborne connected to Hugh Grant and Evan Harris.

Does anyone know how individual costs are calculated, and how they are likely to vary between the claimants?

If he’s a scmoozer and still isn’t KC my guess is he doesn’t want the close attention on his work…wonder why 🤔

It's a bit complicated, @Noodledog, but essentially the cases were 6 individual cases, although they were all heard together, meaning they could each stand or fall individually.

Despite that, they all had a common basis and a large amount of common allegations. This meant that there was a lot of work that overlapped, both for the claimants' legal team and for ANL's team in defending the cases.

There were 2 pre-trial costs hearings - I'll put them here. The first one gives an indication of how the costs were adding up at that point (Jan 25, so a year before trial).

January 2025 Costs management hearing [15, 51]
This was where the capped budget was set for the rest of the case for both the claimants and the defendant.

December 2025 Costs liability hearing [8, 30]
This was where ANL applied for the claimants to be held jointly and severally liable for the common costs. This was approved.
This was the judgement where Judge Nicklin told the claimants to be very clear about the consequences of the way the litigation was being conducted, and to ensure they had sufficient insurance.

Sorry - left out a sentence at the end of the second paragraph saying 'Many of the costs for each case could therefore be combined as common costs.'

There are tables in the first link that show what the individual costs were looking like at that point.

I've scoffed all my 🍿 and nibbled my nails in anticipation for 2..whole..days! And now I will be out today until 4!! Hopefully, by the time I've made a cuppa and settled down, you wonderfully well-informed peeps will have the nitty-gritty laid out in black and white. Huge thanks in advance as always 😻

I am so sorry OP, have downloaded but cannot access the judgements.
Was the case considered frivolous then?
Did the DM have evidence of named sources leaking from each complainant, so at least six, which therefore disproved any claim of phone hacking?
Thanks in advance 💐

It's up to the complainants to prove wrong doing, which they failed to do on all (over 90) counts.

In some counts the info had been put out by a named person, from what I remember in one case the person's publicist had released the info, in another the DM picked it up after it had already appeared in another newspaper.

In other cases it was shown that gossip could quite easily have been the source. Harry denying there were any journalists in his social circle, for example was easily proved to be false because of weekends where he had partied with a DM reporter, knowing she was a journalist. They had 'movie snuggles' apparently... all shown in messages they exchanged at the time, so fairly solid evidence.

Then, of course, the witness statement they were relying on had already been repudiated by the witness long before it got to trial, and the solicitor who signed it off when it was made didn't exactly follow the usual process when getting a witness statement...

Thank you. This explains it very clearly and succinctly.

Yet no news of them selling Montecito. Or the Portugal house and I guess they'll be needing somewhere to stay in England

Legal stuff only on this thread please.

https://theupsetterstrikes.substack.com/p/last-of-the-fauxhicans

I concur

Apparently Harry has said he is covering Doreen Lawrence's costs

Not a chance, @nicepotoftea
As with "I'll pay for our own security" he might have pretended that was his intention in pursuit of what he wanted (to get Doreen on board?), but if it comes to it she'll be flicked aside with a princely disdain

Thanks @Baital - that's a very good summary.

@SummerNocturnal, sorry you can't access the judgement. There is a non-PDF link here BAILII link . I will warn you that the judgement is > 400 pages long, and the summary available via the button at the top of the page is in PDF format.

As @Baital says, in a civil case the burden of proof is on the claimants. They were unable to bring evidence to show that there had been unlawful information gathering on the part of ANL, and the forty or so journalists who gave evidence (written or oral) had good explanations for how they sourced their stories.

Are you saying that Harry would get somebody else (e.g. his father) to pay, or that she would be left out of pocket?

The second seems unlikely in the circumstances.

I suspect it was a casual 'i'll make sure you don't lose out' without any expectation of having to pay up...

Is today the day when Harry et al find out how much they'll have to stump up?

It's listed for 2 pm today, @SirChenjins.

Either, nicepotoftea - just so long as he's not paying it himself

It's well shown that taking responsibility for things isn't to Harry's taste and thhat he'll lie endlessly to get what he wants, so I wouldn't expect Doreen to be any different

I wonder if H and DL will launch a new campaign to restrict the press on the back of today's decision.

Could he get a super injunction?

Also, 2pm. Is this when the judge starts reading out 400 pages or is this a quick announcement ie “they need to cough up £46million by the end of today” ?

If there is one thing that Harry has shown over the years, it's that he is a tight-fisted freeloader. No way will he pay for DL (unless she has something watertight in writing). He'll just expect Elton to cough up. Or Pa.

There won't be (I hope!) a 400 page judgement.

There will be a decision on costs, which will include whether or not ANL have been awarded indemnity costs, and the initial amount that the claimants need to pay within 14 days.

Copying over from a previous post (apologies for duplication / laziness):

I would expect the costs judgement to include:
(a) a decision on capped or indemnity costs awarded to ANL, with reasoning given in minute detail
(b) amounts determined for individual costs, with reasoning
(c) total amount determined for common costs, with reasoning
(d) amount to be paid within 14 days (proportion of individual and common costs)
(e) date by which entire amount is to be paid

Aye, with a ‘Trust me, I’m a Prince of England’ and a hay nonny nonny no.

Is there a difference in the way/vigour with which costs / debts can be enforced, between the US and the UK ? Just wondering if that has any bearing on the Sussexes’ sudden return.

could ANL have sent the bailiffs in in Montecito to take all the jam (sorry, spread) ?