What Prince Harry's Daily Mail Ruling Could Mean for Tabloid Press

Prince Harry won the first round in his hacking case against his most hated U.K. newspaper group but “both sides will take a reputational knock or two,” a lawyer told Newsweek.

The Duke of Sussex is suing the Daily Mail and sister titles on historic allegations of phone hacking, wiretapping and misuse of private information.

A judge on Friday quashed efforts by the publisher to have the case thrown out on the grounds it was filed too many years after the events.

Prince Harry is seen smiling as he leaves the High Court, in London, following a hearing in his case against the Daily Mail’s publisher, on March 30, 2023. More recently, he won the first round in the court fight.
Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

Harry is celebrating the ruling as a significant victory—alongside other celebrities and public figures who are also suing.

Meanwhile, Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publisher of the Mail, is celebrating an aspect of the ruling that will make it harder for the claimants, Harry, Elton John, Sadie Frost and others, to include some pieces of evidence.

Amber Melville-Brown, of international law firm Withers, said that during the coming trial “likely both sides will take a reputational knock or two, and bets are on as to who will hit the canvas.”

“ANL asked the court to dismiss the case without trial but has failed in its attempt to do so,” she said. “With the parties so very far apart, with claims of deception in the blue corner, and the defendant’s argument that this is ‘preposterous’ in the red (top) corner, an early knockout seemed unlikely.

“The ‘referee,’ Mr. Justice Nicklin, has agreed, and his judgment makes way for a final showdown in court.”

Newsweek has reached out to ANL and Harry through his representatives for comment.

The phone hacking scandal rocked the British media and dominated public debate for years, culminating in the closure of Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid News of the World in 2011 and a number of criminal trials in the years that followed.

However, no Daily Mail journalists were ever prosecuted, meaning it survived the era with its reputation intact.

If Harry and his fellow claimants are successful then that will overturn a vehement Daily Mail defense made by its former editor Paul Dacre—and current editor-in-chief of the tabloid’s parent company—to a 2012 judicial inquiry into press freedom and practices, when he said: “Am I alone in detecting the rank smells of hypocrisy and revenge in the political class’s current moral indignation over a British press that dared to expose their greed and corruption—the same political class, incidentally, that, until a few weeks ago, had spent years indulging in sickening genuflection to the Murdoch press.”

The case is not only about phone hacking, as it also alleges a practice known in Britain as blagging—which involves obtaining something you are not entitled to through pretense. In the case of the press, the allegations largely relate to private investigators obtaining flight records or medical information.

The whole case is a throwback to an era in the history of the British media that many argue is largely over and the claimants will have to cast their minds back, in some cases decades, to recall the incidents they have complained about.

“Not dissimilar from the pre-match bravado of the boxing match, both sides have issued statements indicating that they are up for the fight,” Melville-Brown said.

“The claimants and defendants appear to relish the opportunity of landing the final blow for their cause. Harry and his fellow claimants anticipate proving that ‘serious criminal activity and gross breaches of privacy’ took place, while the publishers intend to establish that the ‘lurid claims’ of ‘phone-hacking, landline-tapping, burglary and sticky-window microphones are simply preposterous.’

“While in most litigation claimant and defendant inevitably give it all they’ve got in fighting their case, here there is no love lost between Harry and ANL, with Harry on a mission to give the British tabloid press a bloody nose for what he sees as decades of abuse, assaults on his wife, and the death of his mother.

“ANL meanwhile, is fighting for its own reputation as a publishing house which did not engage in the gloves-off newsgathering techniques which famously brought the News of the World crashing to the canvas.”

Harry and Meghan Markle have sued the Mail four times between them, though this is the only case they have brought that involves the daily title as well the Mail on Sunday.

They have sued the publisher though more times than any other making it their most hated of the hated British tabloids.

Melville-Brown described the case as “the ultimate legal fight night” in which “a roll-call of celebrity claimants is called upon to give evidence, and we are treated to a blow-by-blow account in its reporting.”

“With no TKO [technical knockout by the Mail],” she added. “It’s all systems go for Harry and his fellow claimants.

“Likely both sides will take a reputational knock or two, and bets are on as to who will hit the canvas.”

A statement on Friday on behalf of Harry and the other claimants read: “We are delighted with today’s decision which allows our claims over serious criminal activity and gross breaches of privacy by the Mail titles to proceed to trial.

“The High Court has dismissed ‘without difficulty’ the attempt by Associated Newspapers (publisher of The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and the Mail Online) to throw these cases out.

“Indeed, the Judge found that each of our claims had a real prospect of showing there was concealment of unlawful acts by the Mail titles and that this could not have been discovered until recently. Our claims can now proceed to trial.”

A statement by ANL read: “As we have always made unequivocally clear, the lurid claims made by Prince Harry and others of phone-hacking, landline-tapping, burglary and sticky-window microphones are simply preposterous and we look forward to establishing this in court in due course.

“We are grateful to the judge for the careful consideration he has given to our applications.”

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek’s The Royals Facebook page.

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