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The Duke of Sussex, along with several other well-known individuals, has taken legal action against the publishers behind the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, accusing them of unlawful information gathering. However, during a recent hearing, the court was presented with the defense’s argument that these claimants are essentially “clutching at straws”. This group of seven prominent figures, including Sir Elton John and Liz Hurley, have alleged that Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) committed serious privacy violations over two decades.
Antony White KC, representing ANL, defended the newspaper group by describing the journalists involved as having a “compelling account of a pattern of legitimate sourcing” for their articles. He suggested that the claimants operated within “leaky” social circles, and dismissed assertions of misconduct as unsubstantiated. According to White, the evidence provided by the celebrities does not demonstrate a “pattern of misconduct” as claimed.
The legal action covers accusations against the publisher for the alleged use of private investigators and blagging to gather information unlawfully between 1993 and beyond 2018. The claimants argue that a number of senior journalists at the Mail and Mail on Sunday were either directly involved or complicit in a culture that caused significant personal harm to the individuals targeted. ANL has consistently denied these allegations of wrongdoing. Alongside Prince Harry, others bringing the lawsuit include actors Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, former MP Sir Simon Hughes, and campaigner Baroness Doreen Lawrence.
During the proceedings at the Royal Courts of Justice, it was revealed that Prince Harry described the impact of the alleged investigative practices as leaving him “paranoid beyond belief.” The trial, expected to run for nine weeks, has seen key claimants such as Harry, Hurley, and Hughes attending the hearings. Antony White argued that the case relies heavily on linking separate pieces of evidence without a solid analytical basis. He emphasized that most journalists named in the suit had provided explanations about their information sources, which White believes reflects a transparent culture within ANL. He further contended that the claimants were drawing on evidence from prior legal disputes involving other publishers, but that this “generic” evidence had been dismissed by the judge, Mr Justice Nicklin, for lacking relevance to the current case. Additionally, ANL has attempted to have parts of the suit dismissed on limitation grounds, asserting the claims were made too late, but the court rejected this in 2023 after claimants introduced new evidence they previously did not have.
This ongoing case is civil and hearings are being decided solely by the judge with no jury involvement. For Prince Harry, this marks his third significant legal battle against media companies over illegal information-gathering allegations. Notably, in December 2023, he succeeded in winning 15 claims against Mirror Group Newspapers, and in January 2025, the publisher of The Sun paid damages and issued an apology regarding invasions of his privacy
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