Prince Harry and six fellow claimants failed to prove a single allegation of unlawful information gathering against Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, after a High Court judge dismantled their case count by count. In the wake of that ruling, a Mail on Sunday editor went public with her own account of Harry's conduct, including a claim that the Duke of Sussex placed a white pill on her tongue at a 2011 gathering as what she described as a test of trust.
Charlotte Griffiths, now editor at large of the Mail on Sunday, wrote a 5,000-word article in the Daily Mail laying out her version of events. She said Harry's sworn testimony about their relationship was false and that she had been "dragged to court to be casually smeared by a royal."
The twin developments, a comprehensive courtroom defeat and a firsthand rebuttal from one of the people Harry's legal team put at the center of the case, amount to a serious credibility problem for the Duke. He staked his reputation on claims of press lawlessness. The judge found the evidence wasn't there.
Mr Justice Nicklin presided over the case in England's High Court. Harry had claimed 14 articles published between 2001 and 2013 were obtained through unlawful means. Six other high-profile claimants, Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost, and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, brought parallel allegations covering articles spanning from 1997 to 2015.
All seven lost on every count.
The judge ruled that the claimants "failed to prove allegations of unlawful information gathering." Most of the information in the disputed articles, he found, was already "publicly reported," came from Palace press officers, or originated within Harry's own "social circle." In short, the stories the Duke called illegally sourced had, in the court's assessment, lawful explanations, and sometimes embarrassingly ordinary ones, as The Sun reported.
The individual rulings were no kinder. Sir Simon Hughes claimed voicemails to a partner were intercepted by private investigators working for the Mail on Sunday in 2006. The judge ruled Hughes could not prove the reporter involved "knew the information in question was the product of voicemail interception", a gap the court called "fatal" to his case.
Liz Hurley alleged that private investigators bugged her landline and placed microphones on her windows, pointing to 15 Mail articles from 2002 to 2011. Mr Justice Nicklin found "no evidence," ruling the information may have come from other press reporting or journalists' "confidential sources."
Sadie Frost claimed investigators hacked voicemails to her ex, Jude Law, and obtained details about her ectopic pregnancy. The judge acknowledged the medical information was "deeply intrusive" but ruled there was no "direct evidence" of voicemail interception and no proof anyone at the Mail publisher was "guilty of unlawful information gathering in relation to this incident."
Baroness Doreen Lawrence, mother of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, had said she felt like "a victim all over again" after learning her phone was allegedly hacked. She pointed to five articles from 1997 to 2007. The judge found those articles came from "lawful sourcing," including confidential police contacts who were not paid.
Sir Elton John and David Furnish claimed their landline was hacked for stories about Sir Elton's health, among other topics. The articles at issue spanned 2000 to 2015. The court said there were lawful explanations for each, and some information may have come from the couple's own PR representative.
Across the board, the pattern was the same: dramatic allegations, thin proof, and a judge unimpressed by the gap between the two.
Griffiths's account adds a layer of personal detail that cuts against Harry's courtroom narrative. She said their first meeting took place at a country house shooting weekend in Hampshire in 2011, when she was a 27-year-old trainee reporter at the Mail on Sunday. During that gathering, she claims, Harry placed a small white pill on her tongue, "almost certainly paracetamol, rather than something more sinister," she wrote, and then declared:
"Now I know I can trust you!"
Griffiths said she discreetly removed the pill and folded it into a napkin. The anecdote, whatever its precise meaning, paints a picture of a prince who treated personal loyalty as a kind of initiation rite, and who was comfortable enough with a journalist to stage the test in the first place.
Harry had testified under oath that he met Griffiths only once, at that 2011 gathering, and cut contact after discovering she was a journalist. Griffiths says that account is flatly wrong.
"The problem, for Harry, is that this is simply not true. We'd in fact met on more than one occasion."
She pointed to Facebook messages, which she says ran from December 4, 2011, to January 22, 2012. Harry allegedly contacted her under the alias "Spike Wells," writing: "It's H... in case u were confused by name and picture!! X." A later message read: "I've been seriously busy since I last saw u but plan on getting back in the mix for Feb! U best be around."
During a film screening at the country house, Griffiths says Harry "shuffled over" to her and got beneath her blanket, putting his arm around her. Harry's court filings reportedly referenced "movie snuggles." Griffiths pushed back on that characterization.
"In fact, we'd merely shared a blanket during a film screening in a sitting room with other people present on a Sunday afternoon."
She described the gesture as nothing romantic, and said Harry also "proclaimed 'Allahu akbar' while rolling his eyes" during a scene involving Islamic fundamentalists in the film being shown.
Griffiths said she never intended to make any of this public. Her private messages with Harry were disclosed during the litigation, and the fallout was severe. She said she received "tens of thousands of messages," including abuse, after the messages surfaced.
"In truth, I would have taken details of our relationship to my grave, had I not been dragged to court to be casually smeared by a royal."
That line frames the entire episode from the journalist's perspective: Harry chose to make her a character in his legal drama, and she is now telling her side because the court forced her hand. Whether readers find her account fully credible is a separate question. But the court's ruling, rejecting Harry's broader claims of press misconduct, lends her version at least circumstantial weight.
A spokesman for Harry was approached for comment. No response was recorded.
The High Court outcome is not a minor procedural loss. Seven claimants, including a duke, a knight, a baroness, and one of the most famous musicians alive, brought their combined star power to bear against a newspaper publisher, and the judge found none of them could prove their case. The ruling described lawful sourcing, legitimate confidential contacts, and publicly available information where the claimants saw conspiracy.
Harry's legal battles against the British press have become a defining feature of his post-royal public life. He has framed them as a fight for accountability. But accountability runs both ways. When a claimant's own sworn testimony is contradicted by a witness who says she has the Facebook messages to prove it, the question of who misled whom shifts direction.
The open questions remain significant. No appeal plans have been disclosed. The exact date of the ruling and the case's formal docket number were not specified in available reporting. And Harry's camp has not responded to Griffiths's specific allegations about his testimony.
What is clear is the bottom line: Harry asked a court to validate his grievances against the press. The court said no, on every count.
When you spend years telling the world you're the victim of a lawless press, you'd better hope the judge agrees. This one didn't.
