The ‘personal watershed moments’ that sparked legal action from likes of Liz Hurley and Elton John
We’ve heard from Prince Harry in court today, but he’s not the only high-profile figure pushing this case against Associated Newspapers.
Yesterday, barrister David Sherborne told the court about the individual claimants’ “personal watershed moments” – the point at which they found out what they say is information that led to them bringing this case forward.
These are important as, alongside strongly denying wrongdoing, part of Associated Newspapers’ defence is that these claims have been made too late – as the law indicates this sort of case should be brought within six years.
The claimants should have known, or could have found out, if they had a potential case before October 2016, six years before the legal action was launched in October 2022, ANL argues.
However, Sherborne argues alleged wrongdoing by ANL was deliberately “concealed” – an exception which allows claims to be brought outside the standard six-year period.
From the claimants’ skeleton argument – the summary of their legal case, a 180-page document that has been submitted to the court – here are some of the details of those moments.
Sadie Frost – January 2019
This came after Frost was given notice of an article that was due to be published by BylineInvestigates.com, “showing that her private voicemails were the subject of interception”.
Frost says the article was “so detailed” and the “first time that I knew that I had a potential claim against Associated”, the court document states.
Prior to 2019, the actress had previously pursued claims over alleged unlawful information gathering against other publishers, but had not “seen any evidence to suggest” ANL had “targeted” her before, it says.
Prince Harry – late 2019/early 2020
Sherborne’s skeleton argument says that it was only following another claim launched by Harry – against News Group Newspapers, publishers of The Sun – that he was “was made aware of relevant evidence” for a potential claim against ANL.
Harry says the first he “discovered” of alleged potential unlawful information gathering by ANL, or by private investigators on behalf of ANL, was “in the last few years”.
The importance of this litigation to Harry is “clear and poignant”, the court document states, adding that the duke had “no constructive or actual knowledge of his claim” prior to his personal watershed moment.
Elizabeth Hurley – December 2020
The actress and businesswoman first learned of “information which was sufficient for her to know that she had a worthwhile claim against Associated” when her lawyer “alerted her” that private investigator Gavin Burrows had come forward, the court document states.
This was “admitting to unlawful gathering of information relating to her”, allegedly “on the instruction of The Mail on Sunday”.
It should be noted that Burrows later said his signature on a statement about these claims had been forged.
ANL’s lawyer Anthony White said in court yesterday that the statement had been “disavowed” and that claims that Burrows received large sums of money from the publisher were “inherently implausible”.
Sir Elton John and David Furnish – early 2021
The couple first learned of alleged unlawful information gathering from Hurley, who called them to tell them about Burrows – that he had “admitted to intercepting and recording their live telephone conversations at their home in Windsor for The Mail on Sunday”, the court document alleges.
“The nature and impact of what the claimants learned was such that Mr Furnish instructed lawyers to investigate what had happened to him and Sir Elton,” it continues.
Sir Simon Hughes – early 2022
This came when Sir Simon first saw “direct, internal material” that implicated ANL, in particular “emails that related to him” and an alleged payment record for “Simon Hughes boyfriend”, the court document states.
The politician’s claim is a “pure unlawful information-gathering intrusion claim” as no article that “could, even conceivably, have alerted” him to alleged wrongdoing was published by ANL titles, it says.
After receiving legal advice, Sir Simon says he decided to take legal action in March 2022.
Baroness Doreen Lawrence – January 2022
This was prompted initially by an email from Prince Harry suggesting there was information she should know, the court documents say. She then had a meeting with two lawyers.
“Most importantly, she learned at her Personal Watershed Moment that private investigators had confessed to criminal activities aimed at secretly stealing and exploiting information from victims, including her – this information itself had only emerged in late 2021,” the document states.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source news.sky.com ’
