Prince Harry, Elton John and Others Slam ‘Deplorable’ Tactics and Promise to ‘Uncover the Truth’ Ahead of Trial

Prince Harry, Sadie Frost, Elizabeth Hurley, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish are amongst the high-profile names speaking out after a judge ruled that they can now go to trial for their lawsuit against U.K. publisher Associated Newspapers, which publishes The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and Mail Online. Following the news, the star-studded roster of plaintiffs released some fiery comments.

The full statement given to The Messenger on behalf of Baroness Doreen Lawrence of Clarendon OBE, John, Furnish, Prince Harry, Hurley, Frost and Sir Simon Hughes reads: 

"We are delighted with today’s decision which allows our claims over serious criminal activity and gross breaches of privacy by the Mail titles to proceed to trial. The High Court has dismissed 'without difficulty' the attempt by Associated Newspapers (publisher of The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and the Mail Online) to throw these cases out. Indeed, the Judge found that each of our claims had a real prospect of showing there was concealment of unlawful acts by the Mail titles and that this could not have been discovered until recently. Our claims can now proceed to trial.

As we have maintained since the outset, we bring our claims over the deplorable and illegal activities which took place over many years, including private investigators being hired to place secretly listening devices inside our cars and homes, the tapping of our phone calls, corrupt payments to police for inside information, and the illegal accessing of our medical information from hospitals and financial information from banks. We intend to uncover the truth at trial and hold those responsible at Associated Newspapers fully accountable.

The Judge also found ledgers showing secret payments by The Mail and The Mail on Sunday to private investigators which had been provided to our lawyers and could not be used at this stage without the consent of the newspapers or the Government. This only delays the inevitable since they will have to be produced in the course of the claim by Associated in any event. However, if The Mail and The Mail on Sunday have nothing to hide, and they genuinely believe our allegations are unfounded, as they appear to claim, they should provide us with the ledgers voluntarily now, and let the claims proceed to trial as quickly as possible."

The Duke of Sussex and the other plaintiffs claimed that "Associated has obtained their private and/or confidential information using techniques such as interception of voicemail messages, listening into live telephone calls, obtaining of information by deception, and the use of private investigators," according to documents obtained by The Messenger.

The information allegedly gathered through improper methods like hacking were then published in various publications owned by the media company.

A hearing has been set for Nov. 21, 2023, in London. ANL previously has denied wrongdoing and in March argued that the allegations exceeded the statute of limitations. The company said in a statement to The Messenger that the "lurid claims made by Prince Harry and others of phone-hacking, landline-tapping, burglary and sticky-window microphones are simply preposterous."