The celebrities could be forced to pay millions more to the publisher, which spent £34m defending the claims
Prince Harry and six other prominent public figures have been ordered to pay £9.5 million in an initial payment to the publisher of the Daily Mail after accusing them of unlawful information gathering.
The sum is the first payment the Duke of Sussex and his fellow complainants will be forced to pay to Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), which spent £34m defending the claims before they were comprehensively dismissed in July.
High Court judge Mr Justice Nicklin ruled the royal and other high profile figures, including Baroness Doreen Lawrence and Sir Elton John, to make the initial payment and said the rest of the costs will be decided at a future hearing.
The claimants had alleged ANL carried out or commissioned unlawful activities such as landline tapping, hiring private investigators to place listening devices inside cars or “blagging” private records.
ANL strongly denied the claims in a high-profile 45-day High Court trial, where Harry and the other celebrity claimants gave evidence.
In a 436-page judgment in July, Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed all claims brought against ANL, which related to 57 stories – most of which were published between 1997 and 2015.
The judge said that none of the group had proven their allegations of unlawful information gathering. The burden of proof is lower in the civil courts and claims must be proven on the balance of probability to be successful.
In a statement following the ruling, ANL said the decision was an “overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists, and for a free press generally”.
“As the judgment clearly shows, every single article was legitimately sourced,” they said, adding that the case had “wasted so much valuable court time and more than £50 million in legal costs”.
The cases later returned to the High Court for a two-day hearing over costs, where the court was told ANL’s total costs had spiralled to more than £34.5 million, while Harry and other claimants only had an insurance policy which covered £16 million.
ANL, which also publishes the Mail On Sunday, had asked for more than £9.9m as an interim payment ahead of future hearings to decide its legal costs in depth.
Lawyers for the group of household names, also including David Furnish, Sadie Frost, Liz Hurley and Sir Simon Hughes, had argued the interim payment should be just over £7.9m.
Mr Justice Nicklin previously said the claimants would need to pay the interim payment on 28 August, adding: “They are going to be paying a sum of money that I will confirm in the judgment.”
During the hearing, ANL said the group of household names should pay the total costs on an indemnity rather than a standard basis, which would be more favourable to the publisher in terms of the amount it can recover.
However, Nicholas Bacon KC, for the group, said in written submissions that it could be “very significant” if the group of seven had to pay ANL’s costs on this stricter basis and could lead to them being without enough insurance cover.
The judgment comes after it was made public on Wednesday that Harry and his wife the Duchess of Sussex are moving back to the UK after six years living in California.
This is a developing news story, more follows…
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies