Prince Harry loses privacy lawsuit against Daily Mail publisher
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The news: Prince Harry and six other high-profile figures lost their privacy case against the Daily Mail’s publisher, after London’s High Court ruled they failed to prove their information was gathered unlawfully.
Harry, Elton John, David Furnish, Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost, Doreen Lawrence and former British Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes had accused Associated Newspapers of phone hacking, blagging and other unlawful methods across dozens of articles published between the 1990s and 2015.
Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed every claim, writing that “suspicion, even understandable suspicion, is not proof” and rejecting attempts to prove the case by broad inference where a lawful source pathway remained realistic.
He declined to rule on whether unlawful information gathering was widespread at the Mail, deciding each claim individually.
What they said: Associated Newspapers said in a statement the ruling was “an overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists” and that it would seek to recover costs, estimated at more than GBP50 million.
Harry, in London for an Invictus Games event, did not respond on camera.
It was the last unresolved case among several Harry has brought against British tabloids, having won against Mirror Group in 2023 and settled with Rupert Murdoch’s News Group in 2025.
The sources: Reuters, The Guardian, BBC, The New York Times
