The Daily Mail has lost Prince Harry's court battle. A High Court judge has found that portions of a Mail on Sunday article that claimed the Duke of Sussex sought to keep his legal action against the Home Office "secret" were defamatory.
The Duke of Sussex filed a lawsuit against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) after the publication of an article about a hearing in a separate High Court case he had about the security measures in place for him while in the UK.
Prince Harry Wins Defamation Claim Against Mail on Sunday
Justice Nicklin was tasked with determining the "natural and ordinary" interpretation of the passages in the claim and whether they were defamatory during a hearing in June.
Per Mirror, lawyers for Prince Harry argued the article was defamatory and meant that Prince Harry tried to manipulate public opinion and had tried to keep his legal fight with the Government secret from the public.
In response to a reader's interpretation of one of the article's meanings, Justice Nicklin said Prince Harry "was responsible for public statements, issued on his behalf, which claimed that he was willing to pay for police protection in the UK, and that his legal challenge was to the Government's refusal to permit him to do so, whereas the true position, as revealed in documents filed in the legal proceedings, was that he had only made the offer to pay after the proceedings had compelled him to do so."
Prince Harry's attorneys said the article was defamatory and that its claims that Prince Harry "lied," had improperly and cynically attempted to sway public opinion, and had tried to conceal his legal battle with the Government from the public were all insinuations that Prince Harry had "lied."
"Allegations that a person has lied to the public, misled the public, or tried to keep anything hidden that should rightfully be made public are severe ones that tend to diminish him in the eyes of right-thinking people," Justin Rushbrooke QC, speaking on behalf of Prince Harry, said.
Mail on Sunday to Release Statement in Response to Ruling
With Andrew Caldecott QC arguing that the article does allege that the claimant's PR team spun the story or added a gloss that was excessively favorable to the claimant, which caused inaccurate reporting and confusion about the nature of the claim, ANL's attorneys argued the article was not defamatory. The Duke of Sussex filed a libel lawsuit against ANL on Friday, and the publisher is now required to write a response to the ruling, as per The Sun.
Meanwhile, the High Court has now been put on hold while the Daily Mail asserts that Prince Harry and one of the Queen's senior advisors had a tense relationship. The legal team for the prince claims that there were "significant tensions" between the Duke of Sussex and Sir Edward Young, the Queen's Private Secretary.
The relationship between the two was revealed in today's High Court hearing related to Prince Harry's legal dispute with the Home Office over its decision to reduce his UK police protection.
The duke is suing the department after learning that, despite volunteering to pay for it, he would no longer receive the "same degree" of personal protective protection while coming from the US.
The 37-year-old prince is contesting the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures' judgment from February 2020. The Home Office is in charge of the company. However, the High Court was informed today about how the Royal Family was engaged in the choice of his police protection.
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