Lawyers for the Duke of Sussex and other celebrities have been ordered by a High Court judge to reveal payments made to witnesses in their case against the publisher of the Daily Mail.
Harry and public figures including Sir Elton John and the actresses Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley have also been ordered to provide details of the “watershed” moment when the lawyers told them they were alleged victims of unlawful information gathering.
They have accused the publisher of conducting or commissioning unlawful activities such as hiring private investigators to tap phones, “blagging” private records and burglaries to order. Associated Newspapers denies the allegations and has described the claims as “lurid” and “simply preposterous”.
Sir Elton John is among the public figures suing the publisher of the Daily Mail
PATRICK VAN KATWIJK/GETTY IMAGES
The publisher said a limited number of documents disclosed by the celebrities’ lawyers show that “payments were made or offered” to “procure evidence and invoices”.
It is alleged the payments were made by the lawyers’ “research team”, which includes Evan Harris, a former Liberal Democrat MP, and Graham Johnson, who received a suspended jail sentence in 2014 after admitting phone hacking while working for the Sunday Mirror.
Mr Justice Nicklin on Friday ordered the lawyers to hand over documents “that can support a case that a witness has been paid or offered other inducement for their evidence, whether directly or indirectly”, adding: “That is because there is a real prospect that Associated will be able to rely upon this evidence to attack the credibility of such witnesses.”
The judge said the position of the celebrities’ lawyers has been “undermined by their inconsistent and incoherent approach to disclosure of documents relating to payments to potential witnesses and/or other inducements”.
Nicklin said there “are serious questions to be answered” about the status of the lawyers’ research team. “It appears highly likely that members of the research team do hold documents that fall within the claimants’ standard disclosure obligations, and which have not yet been disclosed,” he said.
Harry has told the court he first became aware he had a potential claim against the publisher when told by barrister David Sherborne. He wrote in his memoir, Spare, that his interest in cases against the media was prompted by a meeting with a lawyer at Elton’s villa in the south of France.
Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, one of the claimants, says she was emailed by Harry, who told her Sherborne and one of his team “would be keen to come and speak to you … in order to explain what this material shows and what your options are”.
The judge said Elton, his husband, David Furnish, and Hurley were also informed by barristers that they were allegedly victims. Frost said she learnt she was allegedly a victim by reading an article by Johnson on his Byline Investigates website
The court was told Lawrence had not disclosed any documents relating to Harry’s claim that Sherborne had material he wanted to show her. Frost has not disclosed any communication with Johnson or Byline Investigates in relation to the article she read.
A trial of the claims, in which legal costs could reach an estimated £38 million, is expected to start in January and last for about nine weeks.
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