A civil claim brought by high-profile individuals against the publisher of the Daily Mail for alleged unlawful information gathering must not become a public inquiry, the head of the High Court's media and communication list has warned.
Ruling following a case management hearing in Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon & Ors v Associated Newspapers, Mr Justice Nicklin agreed with the defendants that the claimants, who include Prince Harry, duke of Sussex, were attempting to conduct 'a wide-ranging, unfocused and disproportionate inquiry that is not justified by their particulars of claim'.
Seven well-known individuals, including Baroness Lawrence, Sir Elton John and Prince Harry, allege that Associated's newspapers - the Mail titles - habitually obtained information by unlawful means at least during the period 1993 to 2011. Associated denies all allegations of unlawful activity and says its use of private investigators ended in 2007. It also says the claims are out of time under the Limitation Act 1980.
The case management hearing heard applications from both sides for disclosure. Rejecting five 'unfocused' applications for disclosure by the claimants, Nicklin ordered some redactions to Associated's disclosures to be lifted ‘but only in a targeted way’ to show whether particular journalists had a propensity to gather information in unlawful ways. However he stressed that, as in a criminal trial, 'proof of propensity cannot itself prove wrongdoing by a defendant on another occassion'.
Granting an order sought by Associated for the claimant lawyers to disclose any documents relating to payments or other incentives for witnesses, Nicklin said: 'It appears highly likely that members of the [claimants'] research team do hold documents that fall within the claimants’ standard disclosure obligations, and which have not yet been disclosed.'
On another disclosure application, the judge described as 'surprising' the lack of contemporaneous documentation surrounding each 'watershed moment', when the claimants said they became aware that they might have been targets of unlawful information gathering. The claimants are relying on the timing of such moments to counter Associated's limitation defence. They should therefore be required to carry out a further search for contemporaneous material, for example messages 'expressing shock or outrage', the judge said. An absence of corroborating documents 'may well be relied upon by Associated to suggest that the watershed moment could not have been quite as shocking as being claimed'.
A further case management hearing and a pre-trial review will be held ahead of the substantive hearing, listed for nine weeks from 14 January 2026.
David Sherbourne, Ben Hamer and Luke Browne, instructed by Gunnercooke LLP, Thomson Heath & Associates and Sheridans Solicitors LLP, appeared for the claimants; Andrew Caldecott KC, Antony White KC, Catrin Evans KC, Sarah Palin and Ben Gallop, instructed by Baker McKenzie LLP, for the defendant.
