This past July, Prince Harry and his co-plaintiffs lost their years-long case against the Mail. Justice Nicklin basically decided to ignore all of the evidence and testimony provided, finding in favor of the Mail entirely. In August, Nicklin ordered Harry and the co-plaintiffs to pay over $10 million towards the initial court costs, and the Mail wants even more. Fascinating sidenote about the British legal system being an extremely small world: Justice Nicklin is also the judge overseeing the mystery celebrity’s attempt to get an injunction on several media outlets who want to publish pieces about the celebrity’s sexual predations. Nicklin tossed out the injunction but has given the celebrity time to appeal. My point? Nicklin seems fully on the media’s side in every case. Maybe that’s because he used to represent the tabloids when he was a lawyer?? Well, about that. It turns out that Harry and his fellow claimants have decided to appeal.

Prince Harry and his fellow claimants are seeking an appeal after losing a legal case against a U.K. publisher.

The Duke of Sussex, 42, was one of several high-profile figures — including Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley and Jude Law’s ex-wife, Sadie Frost — who claimed that Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL)’s Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday published stories about them with information that had been sourced unlawfully, dating from the 1990s until 2011. However, in July, the court dismissed all of their claims after finding they had failed to prove their allegations of unlawful information gathering.

On Friday, Nov. 6, a spokesperson said, “We confirm that the claimants have today filed applications with the Court of Appeal for permission to appeal the judgments of Mr. Justice Nicklin in respect of his dismissal of their claims and the indemnity costs order.”

“The claimants respectfully disagree with those unprecedented decisions, which they consider to be legally and factually flawed,” the spokesperson added.

Following the ruling over the summer, ANL called the judge’s decision an “overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists, and for a free press generally.” However, Prince Harry and fellow claimant Baroness Doreen Lawrence released a lengthy, scathing statement, which referred to the outcome as “a complete and obvious whitewash.”

“We came to Court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither,” Harry and Baroness Lawrence said, in part. “The lengths to which the Court has gone to exonerate the Mail is as shocking as it is totally unwarranted.”

“It feels here like one rule for the newspapers and another for the claimants. While the Claimants presented evidence, Mail journalists simply gave denials, and the Court chose uncritically to believe them, even in the face of inconsistencies, contradictions and blatant untruths that were obvious to neutral observers in Court when compared to the documents,” they added. “We presented to the Court evidence which we believed was compelling at the time and remains so now. We would like to thank our legal team for all their hard work and all the witnesses who were brave enough to come forward in the pursuit of justice.”

[From People]

I mean… I’m glad they’re appealing, even if I genuinely wonder if the fix has been in from the start of this process. If Justice Nicklin can toss out every single argument and every single piece of evidence from Harry and the co-plaintiffs, then it’s doubtful that a second judge will do anything different. Still, they’ve got to hope that something could change. Unfortunately, the appeal will mean that the Daily Mail will continue to heap abuse on Harry and Meghan, and the Mail will continue to target their family aggressively. The Mail kept escalating further and further as the case came to trial, and the full British-press cartel backed them up.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.