Prince Harry loses privacy case against Daily Mail publisher

Prince Harry, along with other prominent British figures, suffered a comprehensive defeat Tuesday as London's High Court rejected their privacy lawsuits against the publisher of the Daily Mail. This ruling marks a major setback for the Duke of Sussex in his protracted legal disputes with the British media.

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the judgment was a complete and obvious whitewash.

Harry, who resides in California, has been a vocal critic of the British press, long blaming them for the circumstances surrounding his mother Princess Diana's death in a 1997 car crash. He has drawn parallels between her treatment and that of his wife, Meghan, describing in court how the Daily Mail had made Meghan's life "an absolute misery."

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an overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists and for a free press generally.

While Harry had previously secured a settlement with Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper arm and won a case against the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Tuesday's judgment is a substantial loss. He and fellow claimant Doreen Lawrence, mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, stated that the judgment was a "complete and obvious whitewash."

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privacy alone does not prove unlawful acquisition.

Associated Newspapers celebrated the ruling as an "overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists and for a free press generally." The publisher indicated it would seek its legal costs after a trial estimated to have cost over £50 million ($66.8 million). The claimants had alleged that numerous stories published between the 1990s and 2011 were based on unlawfully obtained information, including phone hacking and "blagging" for personal details. However, Judge Matthew Nicklin ruled that mere suspicion was insufficient to prove unlawful acquisition, dismissing Harry's case regarding specific articles.

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We presented to the court evidence which we believed was compelling at the time and remains so now.