Associated Newspaper release a statement against Prince Harry and other claimants

Once more, Prince Harry finds himself on the signing-end of a checkbook, because he has effectively lost his case against the Daily Mail’s publishers, over phone hacking allegations.

Now, July 29th and July 30th will act as the days the judge, Matthew Nicklin plans to hear arguments from both sides to determine what chunks of payment should come from the plaintiffs, like Prince Harry and Elton John.

What is also pertinent to mention is that part of the bill could be paid off by insurance, however, the vast chunk is promised to the opposing parties, according to Newsweek.

The newspaper legal team has also released a statement on the day of this back-and-forth and tells the outlet, “the Claimants’ individual cases were pursued for the most part without any supporting documentary evidence and on the barest inferential basis.”

Moreover, they say, “allegations of the utmost seriousness were put by the Claimants to Associated’s witnesses without any prior notice or evidential basis. At the same time, other serious allegations—including the most important elements of the allegations of perjury advanced against three of Associated’s senior executives—were either not put to the witnesses at all or only partially put, without at any stage being formally withdrawn.”

Their concluding remarks stated, “all of this was done with the benefit of absolute privilege and in the glare of full publicity, courted by and on the Claimants’ behalf.”

As for the other parties involved, they range from Sir Elton John, as mentioned earlier, his husband David Furnish, actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, racial justice campaigner Baroness Doreen Lawrence and also politician Sir Simon Hughes.

What’s also important to note is that the Mail's former editor-in-chief Paul Dacre, who ran the paper during the period the allegations are related to, has come forward too and calls the entire thing “a conspiracy” to “destroy” the newspaper so his intention is to make the claimants to pay as much of the bill as possible.