ANL strongly denied the claims as it defended the cases, which it also said had been brought too late.
The Duke of Sussex and Baroness Doreen Lawrence have described the High Court’s dismissal of their unlawful information gathering claims against the Daily Mail’s publisher as a “complete and obvious whitewash”.
A group of household names, also including Sir Elton John and David Furnish, alleged acts including voicemail interception, landline tapping and obtaining information by deception, also known as “blagging”, were carried out by private investigators, freelance journalists and staff at Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).
ANL strongly denied the claims as it defended the cases, which it also said had been brought too late.
In a decision on Tuesday, judge Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed all of the claims, ruling that none of the group of seven had proven the allegations of unlawful information gathering.
In a joint statement after the ruling, Harry and Lady Lawrence said the ruling was a “complete reversal of the position which previous judges have taken in relation to the hacking claims” brought against News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun and the defunct News of the World, and Mirror Group Newspapers, publisher of the Mirror.
They said: “We came to court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither.
“Generic findings about various private investigators that were held by the courts in these parallel claims to have carried out unlawful activity at the very same time in relation to similar stories and well-known individuals have been wholly ignored.
“The fact that this court has chosen to dismiss them represents an inconsistency which is hard to understand or reconcile with common sense, or the evidence heard in the court room itself.
“It is a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected.
“However, the lengths to which the court has gone to exonerate the Mail is as shocking as it is totally unwarranted.”
In the 436-page ruling, Mr Justice Nicklin said that it was up to the group of claimants to prove the allegations of unlawful information gathering.
He said: “Whilst the standard of proof remains the balance of probabilities, the more serious, and inherently less probable, the allegation, the more cogent the evidence required to prove it.”
The judge said he had accepted that the cases of the group of household names often relied on inferences, given the nature and age of the allegations, but said in reference to some of the articles in the case that “suspicion is not enough”.
Mr Justice Nicklin also said: “In substance, the claimants’ 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.
“That is not a permissible approach.”
