<\/p>\n
Prince Harry’s<\/a> final lawsuit aimed at taming the British tabloids ended in defeat Tuesday as a judge found he failed to prove his privacy invasion claims against the publisher of the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n Justice Matthew Nicklin rejected the broad inferences the Duke of Sussex relied on to try to show that Associated Newspapers Ltd. engaged in unlawful activities. He said there was a shortage of evidence to support the claims and found there was a possibility that the news stories came from legitimate sources.<\/p>\n \u201cIn substance, the claimants\u2019 case invites the Court to conclude that, because the information was private and because Associated cannot positively explain how it was sourced, the article must have been unlawfully sourced,\u201d Nicklin wrote. \u201cThat is not a permissible approach.\u201d<\/p>\n The ruling scuttles a bid by Harry and six others, including singer Elton John and actor-model Elizabeth Hurley, which sought substantial damages but could leave them with a large lawyers’ bill. Legal costs were estimated at about 40 million pounds ($53.5 million) for years of case preparation and an 11-week trial.<\/p>\n The publisher called it an \u201coverwhelming victory\u201d and a \u201cmagnificent vindication” of the Mail’s journalism.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reputations of our decent and hard-working journalists were terribly impugned, and today they have been exonerated,\u201d Associated said in a statement.<\/p>\n The newspapers had denied the allegations as \u201cpreposterous,\u201d insisting the roughly 50 articles at issue were based on lawful sources including friends, royal aides and publicists who offered information to reporters.<\/p>\n The 436-page decision leaves a mixed legacy for Harry’s trio of lawsuits accusing tabloid publishers of using unlawful tactics, such as phone hacking, or hiring private detectives to dig up dirt to snoop on his life.<\/p>\n Harry\u00a0won a judgment<\/a>\u00a0in 2023 that condemned the publishers of the Daily Mirror for \u201cwidespread and habitual\u201d phone hacking. Last year, Rupert Murdoch\u2019s flagship U.K. tabloid, The Sun, made an\u00a0unprecedented apology<\/a>\u00a0for intruding on his life for years, and agreed to pay substantial damages to settle\u00a0his privacy invasion lawsuit<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Stephens, a media lawyer not involved in the case, said Harry’s first significant loss was due to a lack of evidence such as admissions of culpability that he had in previous lawsuits.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was always a mosaic case where little inferences from different things were being put together by the lawyers for Prince Harry,\u201d Stephens said. \u201cAssociated newspapers’ lawyers cleverly rearranged the tiles to show an innocent picture as opposed to the culpable picture that the claimants’ lawyers were trying to demonstrate.\u201d<\/p>\n The verdict, released remotely with no court hearing, coincided with\u00a0Harry\u2019s visit home to the U.K.<\/a>, which has been dominated by headlines over his latest efforts to repair a rift with his father, King Charles III.<\/p>\n Harry has said his litigation \u2014 in which he broke with royal family tradition to seek relief in the courts \u2014 was a primary source of his falling out with his father and brother, Prince William.<\/p>\n