A British High Court ruled that parts of a UK tabloid story about Prince Harry were “defamatory,” securing an early victory for the Duke of Sussex in his libel lawsuit against the publishers of the Mail on Sunday.
Harry is suing Associated Newspapers Limited over a story published in February about the duke’s legal proceedings against the UK’s Home Office over police protection for himself and his family.
In a decision published Friday, London High Court Justice Matthew Nicklin wrote that the “natural and ordinary” meaning of the Mail on Sunday’s article met the legal threshold for defamation. “Overall, the article does signal clearly to the reader that the actions of the claimant, captured in meaning, are discreditable or worthy of criticism,” he wrote.
The article at the center of the lawsuit is headlined, “EXCLUSIVE: How Prince Harry tried to keep his legal fight with the government over police bodyguards a SECRET… then – just minutes after the story broke – his PR machine tried to put a positive spin on the dispute.”
As Nicklin cited in his decision, in an earlier filing, Harry and his lawyers argued that the story defamed him by reporting that he “improperly and cynically tried to manipulate and confuse public opinion by authorizing his ‘spin doctors’ to put out false and misleading statements.”
