Prince Harry’s humiliation complete as he loses war on press | The Daily T

I'm joined by Victoria Ward, our Deputy Royal Editor.But before we speak, let's hear from Hannah Furness, our Royal Editor, who's actually present at an event for the Invictus Games.This was a symposium about military veterans and recovery.And Hannah says that there was no mistaking As he entered the room to deliver his six -minute opening speech, there was no mistaking that he had recently been told of the extent of his legal loss.He looked shaken, swallowing hard, and with eyes darting around the room, but he plowed on, speaking about determination, humour, and the unconquered and unconquerable spirit of the Games and its competitors.Let's listen to a little bit of that.

Different uniforms, very different stories, yet the same determination, the same humour, the same instinct to keep moving forward, even when the road ahead looks uncertain.And that unconquered spirit isn't unique to one nation.It belongs to all of us.And recognizing that shared humanity is what has allowed this community to grow beyond an event into a global movement.Each country represented here is writing its own chapter.

But Victoria, you've been following the case.Remind us, first of all, precisely what was at stake here?

Well, there's a huge amount at stake here, because for Prince Harry himself, it was the culmination of a seven -year legal fight against the tabloid press.Obviously, he won against Miragut newspapers, he won against newsgroup newspapers.He got a settlement on the eve of trial with that one in January 2025.This was his last big hurrah in this moral crusade that he launched in 2019.And he had expected to win.He had made it clear that he thought his claim comprised 14 articles that were published between 2001 and 2013.

He had made it clear that he needed one victory in that race.of stories to show that he proved that Associated Newspapers had been acting unlawfully and that would have been cast as a victory.

And to say he brought this with other people too.

Yes, so it wasn't just Harry, absolutely.There were seven claimants.So there was Sir Elton John, his husband David Furnish, Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost, Sir Simon Hughes and very importantly, Doreen Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence.

Which is the one name that stands out there as, I mean, Simon Hughes was a serious politician too, but Doreen Lawrence is the one name that stands out that makes you think this has a serious ethical implications.

It was a really damaging development in the case when she joined the claim for the Daily Mail because they've been known obviously for campaigning to bring her son's killers to justice, very famously.And she was described in court, though, as a trophy claimant that had been brought in to try and whip up some kind of public support for the claim.And it's massively backfired.

In the course of the trial, we already got some hint that Harry might be on shaky ground.Remind us, there were some people who contradicted his versions of events.

Yes, well, he had claimed that various pieces of private information that had found its way into the newspapers could only have been obtained through hacking or other unlawful activity.But the journalists involved made it very clear that they were picking up bits and pieces of this information from legitimate sources, from Harry's friends, from his associates, from his wider social network.And they had some examples of how that had happened.We saw these Mr. Mischief emails that had been sent between Prince Harry and Mail on Sunday journalist Charlotte Griffiths, which showed the level of, they were kind of on intimate terms, they obviously knew each other very well.They were flirtatious.It was flirtatious, absolutely.

So that seemed to go against what Harry was trying to claim, that he didn't fraternise with journalists at all.

Did Harry?he would get all 14 counts?

I don't think anyone was bold enough to think that they were going to win a clean sweep.

But he would have claimed total victory on one count?

Yes.He only needed one.He made it very clear.His team made it very clear.He only needed to win one of those 14 to prove that Associated newspapers were acting unlawfully and he would have claimed a victory if he had won just one he would have Taken to the steps outside Chatham house where he's been this afternoon or somewhere close by this later on today And he would have done a victory speech and what do you think might have been the material cost?

I mean with the men have lost money here Would there be a risk of a Leveson to Stalin quarry and to press freedom if how he had won?

If any of the claimants had won any of these yeah claims, then yes, absolutely, it was going to be used as some kind of stepping stone to try and push for this Leveson 2 public inquiry that a small band of campaigners have been pushing for for a long time, but successive governments have ruled out.They would have used that as proof that there were lies told at the first Leveson inquiry, and that the government should therefore implicate a second inquiry, which Lord Justice Leveson had called for in the first place.all that's out of the window now.This has been a massive defeat for them, so that's unlikely to happen, I think.

When we were discussing this yesterday, we were game planning what might happen because Camilla couldn't be here today and we were doing that thing of, can we pre -record something and pretend it's happening on the day?And of the scenarios we were running through, we thought most likely this was victory on one count.

Yeah, some and some, yeah.

Or maybe all.But we thought he could also win none of them.And I think everyone's a bit floored by the fact that they've won absolutely none.

I think both sides had honestly, both sides, the publisher and the claimants had thought that it was going to be some kind of grey area where they'd all win some and lose some.This has completely surprised everybody.

Well, in his ruling, Mr Justice Nicklin said the allegations are serious.and required more convincing evidence before they could be said to be proven.But the claimants had failed to prove allegations of unlawful information gathering, rejecting the argument that simply because they could not demonstrate where the information came from does not mean that it was gathered illegally.He says this does not affect the quality of Prince Harry's evidence, which I accept.He concluded, adding that as with each of the claimants, Prince Harry has limited evidence to give on the contentious matters in disputes.In other words, he's not saying Harry was lying.

He's not saying that the evidence he brought was false, but rather it's not sufficient.

Exactly.He actually accepted.He said in his ruling that he accepted Prince Harry's evidence.He said it was very clear.And I was in court.I agree with this.

It was very clear that Harry wanted the court to understand the personal impact that these stories had.And he and he tried to make that point in many ways.And he actually kind of tried to veer off course a little bit, he was being asked questions and the judge had to keep reining him in and say, this is not your case to prove, you just answer the questions, because he was keen to make his point about the personal impact and how it had affected his friendship group and his trust in people and that kind of thing.And the judge said in his ruling that it was very clear that Harry had kind of harboured those grievances and wanted to get that across.he still had to prove that each of those stories had been obtained unlawfully.And he hadn't done that.

How do you think he came across in these sessions, Harry?

He was he was quite calm and quite self -assured, but he was also quite angry.You could see in him that he just all this had been building up in him for years.And this he was on the stand for two hours.And this was his moment to get it all out and try and squash in as much as he could to say to the judge, look, all of this awful behaviour that's been going on in the press.This is the impact it's had.You've got to sort it out.

He was quite bristling at one point.he was quite angry but he kept, he did keep calm largely, but he just kept veering off because he just had these, he obviously had certain things that he wanted to say.And regardless of the questions that were being asked, he just wanted to try and blurt it all out, which is quite common with witnesses in the stand in those circumstances.

And that anger is not just about him, is it?It's about how his mother was treated.And we know the Martin Bashir in the BBC and the lying that was done to Princess Diana when she was alive.And he also feels that the press hounded Meghan Markle when she was in this country too.

And actually he was close to tears just at the end of, although none of these stories involved in this claim concern Meghan Markle because they predated their relationship, he did right at the very end of his evidence say, make a comment to the judge just saying, the press have hounded my wife and they've made her life a misery.And he was very close to tears.You could see it in his face.It was like he just reached breaking point and he got up and left the court and that was the end.But yes, there are layers and layers.here that go, that date back to his childhood and his mother, absolutely.

But we have to defend our role in all of this, because of course, we are the press.Is what we do harassment?

I don't think so.Absolutely not.Right.

I don't, I don't believe so.But also, if you can't prove that something's done illegally, and if something is deemed to be in the public interest, which is a test we always have to apply, then we What the coverage that Harry was given is standard press coverage of a very well known person.

I don't think anyone's going to take away from him the fact that it has obviously these stories are obviously about his private life.He's got a lot.Eleven of the 14 articles in his claim were about his former girlfriends and his relationships.So I don't think anyone can deny that of course that is going to have an impact and it's not very nice to hear, to read in the press.But that's not the same as an unlawful activity.

Because that's what this group of people have always wanted to prove, isn't it?Because they don't like something and I entirely understand why they don't like it and I wouldn't like it, I'd be angry about it too.But because they don't like it, they're looking for a conspiratorial element to it so that they can prove it's not just distasteful, but it's immoral and possibly get it banned in the future.

They want to punish the newspapers for their own, because of what they've been through.Yes, but they've ended up pulling together one and one and making five, I guess, in this particular case.

Now, had he won this case or any element of it, well, this trip really would have been one marked by celebration for Harry, because he's not just here for Invictus, for this case, he's here from Invictus, but also there has been a back and forth attempt to be in touch with the family, which has not gone well.Buckingham Palace offered an invitation to stay.He said no.Then he said yes and they said it was too late.Now that he's here and he lost the case, how does this trip for Harry look?

Well, the Buckingham Palace was very keen to ensure that it didn't have any links to to this case at all, to Harry's reaction, to the ruling, to any of it.It wanted to keep as far back as it possibly can.We know that the King and the Prince of Wales didn't really support the idea of bringing litigation against the newspapers.It's not something that they would ever do.So I think we'll have to wait and see whether it means anything in terms of the Prince meeting his father.I assume it probably won't.

I'm sure that probably that meeting is going to happen at some point this week or next.And I'm sure this will be something that's on the table to discuss.

But I mean, just the tenor of the trip.I mean, it's got to cast a shadow over it.

Absolutely.Yes, he could have.I mean, this is the first day that he's appeared in public today and he could have been jubilant and triumphant for the rest of the week, couldn't he?And now this is certainly going to cast a shadow and it's an unexpected shadow that he wasn't expecting as well.

And almost everything he does, there seems to be some controversy that sticks to him.He's also attended a premiere with a South Bank boss who's been embroiled in an anti -Semitism rant.

Miss Anne Harriman, yes, last night.who he landed in the UK just after.And then some photographs emerged of him at this event at the Southbank Centre with Miss Anne Harriman, who's one of his good friends.He takes photographs of Harry and Meghan quite often.So yes, there were questions raised immediately about why is he aligning himself with these people?Why is he It almost seemed like a political statement or it could have been interpreted as that.

So I don't think it really helps his cause.

Just to explain, Mr Harriman, chairman of the Southbank Centre, has said that he would step down from his role later in the year after becoming embroiled in a controversy over remarks he made online, reported by this newspaper, which included a claim that news outlets had admitted a Muslim victim from coverage of attacks in Golders Green, North London.Now, in terms of what happens in the future, let's talk about the costs of this trial.Very, very expensive.The figure that I have in front of me is an estimated 50 million pounds.Who is going to pay that?

Well, it now looks like the bulk of the costs are going to land with the claimants.

Right.

Which is absolutely terrifying, I imagine, for all seven of them.

Especially for poor Simon Hughes.I can't imagine that the former Lib Dem MP has got that kind of cash.

They all had some kind of special insurance that covered them to a certain extent.But whether it goes to this extent, we're yet to find out.There's a cost hearing that's already been scheduled for July the 29th and 30th, where these issues are going to be thrashed out.But In a hearing, a cost hearing last year, the judge specifically warned that this case could spiral out of control.And he expressed some concern about the seven claimants and wanted to know whether they fully understood the risks because he was concerned they weren't fully abreast of exactly the financial cost and the implications if they lost.And there was some concern that they might have been kind of swept along because the campaigners and the lawyers wanted them on board.

without being fully across the worst case scenario, which has now come to pass.

The court previously heard that claimants were only insured to cover costs of up to 14 million, which would leave them with an additional 36 million pounds to have to cover.Now, does even Harry have that kind of money?

I mean, we don't know.We don't know.But given the fact that they've had to work and they've had to sign contracts with Netflix and others just to pay the mortgage and pay for their security bill, you would assume that this is going to be problematic for most of these claimants, I think.Baroness Lawrence isn't going to have millions of pounds sitting in the bank, we assume.So how are they going to cover it?And who's going to foot the bill?

And whether there's been some kind of assurance by some of the claimants for the others, perhaps, that they might help cover costs if they were to lose?We don't yet know.

Now, if Camilla were here, she'd be gloating over this.She'd be loving all of this.Of course she would, let's be honest.But I feel a bit sorry for him because I feel Harry is angry with the whole country.with its establishment, at least, angry about his family, angry about the press, and that he's always been looking for some some kind of catharsis in all of this.He wants someone to say, you are right.

And he often seems to want someone to say, you are right.And he has a lot of money to prove it, be it providing his security or providing a room at Buckingham Palace or him winning this case.Where do you think this leaves poor Harry and his relationship with our country?

Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens and whether he decides to pursue this and appeal or whether he just wants to draw a line under the whole thing and just accept defeat here, accept that he won the first two big cases against the other newspaper groups and walk away.He's going to feel bitter.He's going to feel angry, isn't he, as you say.He's already crossed with the government for refusing his position.He's crossed with the Royal Institution for refusing his accommodation.He's now going to be crossed with the court system.

And he's already warned of an establishment stitch up when he lost his security case against the Home Office, hasn't he?So he's likely to be furious.But where that leaves him in the longer term, we'll have to wait and see.

Victoria, thank you very much.We'll be back tomorrow at 5pm.

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