Celebrities allege ‘web of illegal acts’ by Mail publisher, court hears

A group of celebrities and politicians bringing legal action against the Daily Mail’s publisher allege a “web of illegal acts”, the High Court has heard.

Duke of Sussex, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Sir Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley and politician Sir Simon Hughes have brought legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).

The group of seven have accused Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) of allegedly carrying out or commissioning unlawful activities such as hiring private investigators to tap phones, “blagging” private records, and burglaries to order.

ANL firmly denies the allegations and is defending the legal action after they previously described the claims as “lurid” and “simply preposterous”.

At the start of a two-day preliminary hearing on Tuesday, the group’s barrister, David Sherborne, said lawyers for ANL had been “excessive” when redacting documents exchanged between the sides earlier this year.

He told the hearing in London: “The approach to disclosure has shown only a partial picture of the wrongdoing.”

Mr Sherborne added that there was redaction of parts of the documents which are necessary to understand the “true extent of the unlawful information gathering”, which he later claimed was “habitual and widespread”.

In written submissions, the barrister said the “overbroad redactions” by lawyers for ANL had made many documents “incomprehensible or extremely time-consuming to analyse”.

Mr Sherborne later added: “The claimants’ cases allege a web of illegal acts – pulling on threads of that web may reveal more of the pattern.

“In any event, the balance here favours disclosure to the claimants, even if on a confidential basis.”

Mr Sherborne said the documents already disclosed reveal “clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information-gathering by private investigators”.

Antony White KC, for ANL, said in written submissions that, as well as denying the claims, the publisher has “advanced a positive explanation” for where information in the articles used in the legal case came from.

Addressing the redactions, the barrister said: “Both sides applied redactions to their documents on grounds of irrelevance and legal privilege.

“The defendant also applied a limited number of further redactions to protect journalists’ confidential sources.”

Mr White also said the disclosure “does not require the defendant to disclose material which might assist the claimant in hunting for an ever-expanding case that there were other ‘victims’ of unlawful information gathering”.

He later said there was a “lack of transparency” in the documents disclosed to them by lawyers for the high-profile individuals.

The barrister added that, “with very limited exceptions”, the alleged unlawful acts or private information obtained have not been properly set out by lawyers for the seven people.

He continued: “The claimants have what they need to properly particularise such allegations as they feel able to put on the record.

“They have instead delayed in order to fish for something they hope might assist them.

“They do this while at the same time making untrue claims about what the disclosure given is said to have established.”

The hearing comes just days after Harry lost a Court of Appeal battle over his security arrangements while in the UK.

The duke lost his appeal against the dismissal of his High Court claim against the Home Office over the decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) that he should receive a different degree of protection when in the UK.

The challenge came after Harry and Meghan left the UK and first moved to Canada, and then California, after announcing they wanted to step back as senior royals.