Cachella Smith
Live editor

Image source, Reuters

A High Court judge has dismissed claims brought by Prince Harry and six others that the Daily Mail publisher used information that had been gathered unlawfully within a number of articles published years ago.

In his judgment today, Mr Justice Nicklin underlined that suspicion alone was not proof - and found the claimants had failed to bring enough evidence to support their allegations.

Nicklin unpicked the arguments for a number of articles brought in as evidence - they included a piece published in 2010 in which Elton John and his husband David Furnish claimed details about their newborn son had been obtained by deception, a draft article about Sadie Frost's ectopic pregnancy, and articles on Prince Harry’s previous relationships.

The judge also dismissed the "Leveson Lies" (as it was termed in pleadings and submissions) - an allegation that former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre and two other senior Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) witnesses gave false evidence to the Leveson Inquiry.

He called those allegations "extremely serious" and said the claimants "are open to criticism" for the way in which they were pursued, he found.

Associated Newspapers Limited, which had always strongly denied all the claims, has called it an "overwhelming victory".

One claimant, former Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes, says the judgement was "very disappointing" - adding he will take time to consider it.

Prince Harry, who is currently in London, and the other claimants are yet to comment publicly.

We are bringing our live coverage to a close now, but you can read more in our news story.

Image source, PA Media

Former Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes, who was among those losing claims this afternoon, has described the judgment as "very disappointing for me, and I am sure for all other claimants.

"I shall take time to consider the lengthy judgment in detail," he says, adding that he plans to make no further comment in the near future.

The barrister for the claimants had accused the Mail of being "prepared to exploit his [Hughes'] sexuality", also citing a moment in 2006 when Hughes was "outed on the front page of the Sun".

All claims against Associated Newspapers Limited were dismissed today.

We haven't yet heard from others yet, including Prince Harry.

Image source, Reuters

Associated Newspapers' editor-in-chief Paul Dacre says the case against the publisher "should never have been brought to trial".

He calls the case a "trumped-up action" costing "well over £50m", adding that it "wasted a huge amount of valuable court time".

His statement after the ruling adds that the High Court dismissed "every single one of the 97 claims", calling it a "momentous victory for the Mail" and "an overwhelming vindication of our journalism".

He accuses Doreen Lawrence - one of the claimants - of turning on the paper, which campaigned for justice for her murdered son Stephen Lawrence.

Dacre also accuses Prince Harry of taking "the biscuit", saying: "There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family."

Sean Coughlan
Royal correspondent, at Chatham House

For Prince Harry's team, the timing could not be worse.

He was speaking at the Invictus Games event exactly as the news of his demolition in court was being announced.

He kept his head down and made the speech. But there was a break in the discussions, and he left the room for a while, with discussions appearing to take place.

There are reports his lawyer David Sherborne has been seen here too.

There must be a lot of phone calls going on somewhere.

The phrase "blagging" has been used throughout this case.

In the judgment, the phrase is defined as "commonly understood to be obtaining information by deception, including a failure to identify oneself properly".

Mr Justice Nicklin acknowledges that "blagging itself also covers a spectrum of activity ranging from sophisticated deception to obtain highly sensitive information (e.g. medical information or records) to low level subterfuge to obtain more prosaic details" such as "calling estate agents to identify who was handling a particular sale".

We're continuing to trawl through the more-than-400 page judgment, after Prince Harry and six others lost their High Court privacy case against the Daily Mail publisher this afternoon.

They claimed the newspaper group used unlawful methods when gathering information for stories, such as hacking or blagging - allegations the publisher strenuously denied.

All of the claims have now been dismissed after the claimants failed to prove the allegations.

As a civil case, the burden lay with the claimants to prove the facts. Ultimately, the judge ruled that they had insufficient evidence, relying instead on "broad inference".

"Suspicion, even understandable suspicion, is not proof," Mr Justice Nicklin wrote at one point in the judgment document, responding to a claim made by Prince Harry.

The Daily Mail publisher has welcomed the ruling as an "overwhelming victory".

A hearing will take place on 29-30 July to hear arguments on any points of dispute and any necessary court orders following the judgment.

Image source, Reuters

The judgment also talks the responsibility of the claimants - Prince Harry, Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley and more - to show that they have the evidence to support their accusations against the Mail publisher.

Because this was a civil case, the "burden lies on each claimant to prove the facts", and establish each part of their claim "on the balance of probabilities".

In non-legal speak, this means the claimants had to show that an event was more likely to have occurred than not.

In a criminal case, the burden of proof is higher, and the prosecution must prove the allegations "beyond reasonable doubt".

Image source, PA Media

One of the articles relied on by Prince Harry in his claim was a 2002 Mail on Sunday piece titled, "Harry's older woman", bylined to journalist Katie Nicholl.

The article reported that he had "set his sights" on TV presenter Natalie Pinkham.

Prince Harry alleged information in the article was gathered unlawfully, claiming Nicholl had got hold of Pinkham's phone number and hired a blagger to obtain billing data to show contact between the two.

Nicholl said a flirtatious relationship between the two was well known, that Pinkham would sometimes speak to her off the record, and that she had several sources who knew both Pinkham and Prince Harry well.

She said one of these included a source in Harry's circle who was sometimes present when he was on the phone, and who had been shown some of his text messages on at least one occasion.

"I accept that evidence as to the sourcing of the article," the judgment says.

Image source, PAUL GROVER/AFP via Getty Images

Tom Symonds
Correspondent

In his full judgment Mr Justice Nicklin examines each claimed breach of privacy, and often noted that there was suspicion about how information was obtained by the journalists.

In one article, the Daily Mail's royal editor wrote in 2013 that Prince Harry faced a lonely New Year’s Eve without his girlfriend Cressida Bonas.

It was claimed a freelance journalist was asked to "blag" travel details for Ms Bonas.

Prince Harry says in a witness statement this was "creepy" and he did not know how the newspaper could have obtained the information about the couple's separate whereabouts.

Mr Justice Nicklin says: "I accept that he found the article intrusive and was genuinely concerned by how journalists appeared to know private information concerning his relationships. But suspicion, even understandable suspicion, is not proof."

The judge in the case - Mr Justice Nicklin - has stated the reasons why the claims have been dismissed.

One is that the claims had been brought to court too late - or that too much time had passed.

Many of the events in the trial dated back 20 or 30 years, which limited the amount of evidence that still existed.

"Put shortly, memories have faded - in some cases entirely - and many documents are no longer available," the judge says.

Civil claims are legally subjected to a six-year limitation period, and ANL argued that the claims made by Prince Harry and others had exceeded that.

But the claimants argued that relevant facts had been deliberately concealed by ANL, and therefore the six-year period should begin when the information was discovered.

The judge only considered this for specific claims relating to Sadie Frost's voicemail being intercepted - but decided that Frost had enough facts to make a claim in 2016, and therefore that too much time had passed.

Daniela Relph
Senior royal correspondent

As we've been reporting, Prince Harry is in the UK today and arrived at an event for the Invictus Games shortly before today's judgment dropped.

We currently don't expect the duke to give a response on camera to the ruling - we've got an eye out for any other reaction.

Image source, Reuters

The written judgment handed down by the High Court today is lengthy - at over 400 pages.

There are dozens of sections, that go through the evidence discussed during the trial in detail.

As part of this, it goes through the articles referenced by the claimants in the trial one by one, laying out the issues raised about them, the evidence given to the court, as well as the discussion and the court's conclusions about it.

Image source, Royal Courts of Justice

Sean Coughlan
Royal correspondent, at Chatham House

Prince Harry has welcomed people to this Invictus Games event, it's clearly a cause that means very much to him.

He's sticking to the script of the speech and clearly wants to make this about supporting the work of those helping injured veterans.

But what a week it's been for him so far. While he talks, people are sharing his court defeat.

The result in his court case against Associated Newspapers has gone very much against him. There's no sign of a straw to clutch at.

And that follows a chaotic start to the week, when he was very publicly not allowed to stay in Buckingham Palace.

Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) has welcomed the High Court's ruling as an "overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists" in a lengthy statement.

"This is a magnificent vindication of the Daily Mail’s journalism," a spokesperson says.

"The reputations of our decent and hard-working journalists were terribly impugned, and today they have been exonerated," they go on to say.

"As the judgment clearly shows, every single article was legitimately sourced."

They add: "We will look to resolve outstanding issues, including the recovery of the costs we have incurred while defending ourselves against this egregious litigation."

Tom Symonds
Correspondent

In a summary of his ruling, Mr Justice Nicklin concludes the allegations were serious and therefore required more convincing evidence before being proven.

He says the seven claimants could not rely on "suspicion, even where understandable". They had to prove information had been obtained unlawfully.

He refuses to make a finding as to whether what became known as unlawful information gathering had become “widespread and habitual” and instead decided the merits of each individual claim.

He says he accepted the denials of Associated Newspaper journalists "who gave lawful explanations for the sourcing of the disputed articles and incidents."

He rules that the claimants had also failed to prove three senior Associated executives - former editors Paul Dacre and Peter Wright, as well as the current senior lawyer at the company Elizabeth Hartley - had lied in their evidence to the Leveson Inquiry where they said there was no unlawful activity at the Mail and Mail on Sunday.

Prince Harry and the six other claimants have failed to prove allegations of unlawful information gathering, today's judgment rules.

The court has rejected their attempt to prove the claims through "broad inference" in cases where there was a "legitimate and realistic" possibility lawful sources were used.

The full judgment runs to over 400 pages, and a summary of the document says: "The Court rejected the attempt to prove the claims by broad inference where there remained a legitimate and realistic possible lawful source pathway, or where the article-specific evidence did not prove that the relevant information must have been obtained unlawfully."

Their claims have been dismissed.

Sean Coughlan
Royal correspondent, at Chatham House

Prince Harry is in the room and cameras are trained on him as he heads for his seat.

But a large number of press in the room are also looking at their phones as the first results of the Associated Newspaper court case begin to land in email inboxes.

It's a split screen moment.

Tom Symonds
Correspondent

Prince Harry and six other defendants have lost their High Court privacy case against the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.

All of the claims have been dismissed after the claimants failed to prove the allegations.

A judgment has now been published in the civil case Prince Harry and six other claimants, including Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley and Baroness Lawrence, brought against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).

It's a written judgment, external - we're currently reading through it and will bring you the details shortly.

Sean Coughlan
Royal correspondent, at Chatham House

We're inside Chatham House, the international affairs think tank, where an audience is gathering to hear Prince Harry and others talk about his Invictus Games.

There are a few military uniforms dotted among the suits.

We've had an early glimpse of what Harry will say about the games for injured service men and women.

"Not simply a week of sport every few years, but a community united by one belief: that the unconquered human spirit exists in every nation and that our shared responsibility is to create the conditions in which it can flourish," he will say.