Article #71658

Victory for Associated Newspapers Limited after court case

In his 436-page written judgment, Mr Justice Nicklin said the claimants failed to prove the allegations of unlawful information gathering (UIG).

As a reminder, the claimants were Prince Harry, Elton John and husband David Furnish, actors Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, campaigner Doreen Lawrence, and former Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes. The judge wrote in his summary:

The court rejected the attempt to prove the claims by broad inference where there remained a legitimate and realistic possible lawful source pathway, or where the article-specific evidence did not prove that the relevant information must have been obtained unlawfully…

The court also held that the parties were bound by the cases they had pleaded. It was not permissible, at trial, to replace a pleaded allegation with a different, and in many instances more serious, allegation of UIG… The claims are therefore dismissed.