Prince Harry has been criticised for his reaction to losing a legal battle against the Daily Mail, with commentators branding it “completely ludicrous”. The Duke of Sussex lost his case of unlawful information gathering against publisher Associated Newspapers last week, when judge Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed all of the claims put forward by Harry and other household names including Baroness Doreen Lawrence and Sir Elton John.
The duke branded the ruling “a complete and obvious whitewash” in a joint statement with Lady Lawrence. TalkTV host Kevin O’Sullivan said sources had told him King Charles was “furious” over the response, since “these are the King’s courts and the judge is His Majesty’s judge”.
“He cannot have his son going around insulting the courts of this land and the judges of this land,” he added. Mr O’Sullivan and guest, royal author Angela Levin, also agreed that the move was “completely ludicrous” on Harry’s part because the judge has yet to decide who will pay the case’s enormous legal fees.
Ms Levin said: “It’s absolutely appalling. How can be make a judgement like that? Mr Justice Nicklin is a very well-known, careful lawyer. For Harry to come in and say that … he will have a very bad time. Harry will have to pay a lot of money because [he’s made it] all about him.”
Harry and his fellow claimants could face a joint legal bill of up to £50million when the costs are finalised later this month.
In a summary of the ruling, Mr Justice Nicklin said the court had rejected the case that articles with no positive explanation as to their sourcing must have been unlawful simply because they contained private information.
He said: “In substance, the claimants’ case invites the court to include that, because the information was private and because Associated cannot positively explain how it was sourced, the article must have been unlawfully sourced. That is not a permissable approach.”
Discussing one of the duke’s articles, about Harry being named as the godfather to the child of his former nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, Mr Justice Nicklin said: “The burden is on Prince Harry to prove that the information he relies upon in this article was obtained by unlawful means carried out or commissioned on Associated’s behalf.
“The allegation, advanced at trial, was that it was obtained by voicemail interception. I am not satisfied that this has been established. The pleaded case does not particularise any unlawful act used to obtain the information in this article.”
In their joint statement, Harry and Baroness Lawrence said the verdict was “sadly not altogether unexpected”.
They added: “When the court says there is not sufficient evidence of wrongdoing … then one does wonder how justice was ever going to be achieved.”