London: Britain's Prince Harry and a group of other high-profile claimants have lost a privacy case against the publisher of the Daily Mail. The High Court dismissed their claims against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) after Justice Matthew Nicklin ruled that they had failed to prove allegations of unlawful information gathering.

According to Anadolu Agency, the judge, in a summary of his 436-page judgment, stated that the claimants had not provided sufficient evidence to establish that information used in articles published by ANL had been obtained unlawfully. The court rejected the claimants' argument that unlawful activity could be proven through broad inference in cases where there was a possible lawful explanation for how information had been obtained.

Justice Nicklin further elaborated that in situations where there was a 'legitimate and realistic possible lawful source pathway,' or where specific evidence did not demonstrate that information must have been gathered unlawfully, the claims could not succeed. ANL, which publishes the Daily Mail, maintained throughout the trial that its stories were obtained through legitimate reporting methods.

The publisher also contended that the claims had been filed outside the legal time limit of six years. The claimants, however, argued for an exception, alleging that important facts had been deliberately concealed by Associated Newspapers. Despite these arguments, Nicklin concluded that because the claims were dismissed on their merits, the court did not need to address the time limit issue for most of the claims.