The private eye at the heart of Prince Harry’s humiliating phone-hacking case has branded the trial a “sham” after the prince was told he must pay millions to a British newspaper.
Elton John and actress Elizabeth Hurley are among the other claimants told that they could be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.
British judge Mr. Justice Nicklin ordered the celebs to first pay $13 million (£9.5 million) to Associated Newspapers Ltd. (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail.
The group had claimed journalists had hired private investigators, bugged cars, obtained private records and tapped into phones. ANL strongly denied the allegations throughout, and Nicklin had already rejected all 97 claims in the blockbuster case.
But Friday’s excoriating ruling said their “unreasonable” reliance on the withdrawn evidence of sleuth Gavin Burrows means there is no limit to how much of the nearly $50 million in legal costs they may be saddled with.
Burrows told the Daily Beast after the ruling: “It is clear this case should not have gone ahead. That’s why I contacted the Daily Mail as soon as I was made aware that Baroness Lawrence had been brought into this sham.
“It is sad for the celebrities—who based their case on apparent evidence supplied by others, including convicted phone hacker Graham Johnson.”
Baroness Lawrence is a British campaigner, politician, and the mother of Stephen Lawrence, a black British boy who was killed in a racist attack in 1993.
The judgment was heard just two days after Harry announced he was returning to the UK with Meghan, 45, and their children.
Burrows’ lurid claims about planting microphones and other intrusions formed a central plank of the claimants’ case. But he later disowned his original witness statement, issuing a second in which he said he had been pressured into the first and claimed his signature had been forged.
In a statement released on Friday, ANL called the ruling “ a devastating critique of an attempt to destroy a newspaper and the reputations of its journalists, editors and executives.”
Both sides will now argue the exact amount before another judge.
Nicklin went far beyond the earlier judgment on Friday, which ripped apart the claimants’ conduct and criticized their behavior in continuing to press claims their star witness, Burrows, had walked back.
He said “the maintenance of serious allegations after the evidential position” had changed was a particular reason why he was placing “no cap” on potential expenses.
The judge said what had unfolded was “not an ordinary incident of evidential failure at trial. It was the culmination of a decision to maintain very serious allegations in reliance on evidence that the Claimants knew, or ought to have appreciated, was seriously compromised.”
His conclusion was blunt: “The cumulative effect of these matters takes the case well outside the norm. The conduct was unreasonable to a high degree.”
The court described Associated’s $47 million costs figure as “striking” and “exceptionally high,” observing that costs “of this order are unprecedented.” The judge stressed that an indemnity order is not a “blank cheque,” and that unreasonable costs will still be disallowed.
Any application to appeal the July 7 judgment and Friday’s costs ruling must be filed by Oct. 2.
For Harry, 41, this is as bad as it could be. He has lost comprehensively, been told by the court that he pursued the claims “unreasonably” to a “high degree,” and now faces potential liability of $45 million, with a $12.4 million down payment due within days.
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