As we discussed yesterday, Prince Harry was awarded damages from the Daily Mail because of their idiotic stories about how Harry had “abandoned” the Royal Marines, a patronage/honor which was taken away from him last year by the Queen. Harry was hugely upset by the implication that he would or has abandoned veterans and servicemen, and he forced the Mail to issue a public apology and he was awarded damages. But apparently Harry’s lawyers went “too far” in their condemnation of the Daily Mail. Or something, I don’t really understand this?
Prince Harry was warned by a judge not to misuse his time in court as he accepted damages from the publisher of the Mail On Sunday. Harry, 36, took action against Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), who publish the Mail On Sunday, after an article said he had turned his back on the military community since he had moved to the US and left his role as a senior royal. The prince said the article was defamatory, and the paper published an apology and paid damages.
But in court it was the royal who was warned as a judge said the prince’s initial statement about the matter was “tendentious”. Harry agreed to alter the initial comments and took out criticisms of ANL, the judge said.
On Monday Jenny Afia, representing the duke, said: “The baseless, false and defamatory stories published in the Mail on Sunday and on the website MailOnline constituted not only a personal attack upon the Duke’s character but also wrongly brought into question his service to this country.” She added that the damages which had been awarded would be donated to the Invictus Games, which he set up in 2014, saying he’d made the decision “so he could feel something good had come out of the situation”.
It emerged that his original statement had been amended after a judge awarded him £2,500 for costs for the hearing.
Mr Justice Nicklin warned the duke the process of giving a statement in court was not “platform for collateral attacks” and should not be “misused”. He said: “The claimant’s original draft statement in open court was unduly tendentious and it included criticisms of the defendant which have, by agreement, now been removed or amended. It could have achieved proper vindication – and generated less by way of dispute – if it had been proposed in terms that properly reflected the purposes of a statement in open court. As reports of statements in open court are protected by privilege, the court will not permit them to be misused. A claimant cannot seek to use a statement in open court as a platform for collateral attacks on the defendant(s) and/or other third parties. If a claimant wishes publicly to make such criticisms, then s/he will have to do so by means outside the statement in open court, for example by issuing a press release.”
A statement from Harry afterward said: “Unsurprisingly, The Mail again misled their readers in December by claiming to make a charitable donation as part of an initial apology. They did no such thing. The duke is personally donating the significant damages recovered from this legal resolution to the Invictus Games Foundation.”
Harry had sought £35,000 for costs for his legal proceedings, but the judge said this was “manifestly disproportionate”, adding: “No litigant of ordinary means would reasonably consider spending such a sum on this exercise.”
How am I reading this – and I may be wrong – is that Harry’s lawyers initially wanted a strongly worded statement (perhaps even a full condemnation) to be read in court about the Daily Mail’s lies and defamation, and the judge shut it down. The judge was basically like, if you want to rip the Daily Mail a new one, don’t do it in court, do it via a press release once you get outside of the courthouse. But of course the royal press is painting this like the judge slapped down Harry. Also: while the Daily Mail did pay damages, they didn’t have to pay for Harry’s lawyers, I guess.
In addition to all of that, Harry has delayed the Invictus Games until next year. He already delayed last year’s games to this year, but yeah, it’s looking like we’re still going to be dealing with the pandemic well into spring and early summer. I was expecting the delay, just as I’m expecting Japan to cancel the Tokyo Olympics.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
Of course the Daily Fail will twist the judges’s words to suit their own narrative, that’s what they do. But Harry’s lawyers can still, and did, release a press statement that gave the true picture.
All the more reason to never go back. Has the Royal family spoken out in support of Harry? No. Screw them all. Never go back!
Suppression at every turn. How much can 1 man bear?
The tabloids and a lot of dense people don’t seem to understand the difference between costs and damages. There are several costs attached to a legal case and that example was just one of them. The details of the damages the fail paid was not made public but it was a lot. Harry is not afraid to say what needs to be said. The tabloids are in for a tough time as he is a soldier through and through and he will defend his name and his wife and child to the very bitter end.
There are some places even tabloids shouldn’t go. Impugning someone’s honorable military service is one of them.
Don’t US courts have a mechanism to allow injured parties to make a personal statement about and to perpetrators? A Victim’s Statement?
A victim impact statement is possible in criminal court after a conviction. I don’t know of any in civil court. I guess, the impact in civil court is presented as part of the case.
Harry wanted Mail on Sunday to pay high court costs around 35,000 pounds. The judge denied that and made them pay only 2,500 pounds. That’s it but the way the press is reporting it, it’s like Harry lost the case. Bottom line, Mail on Sunday lost the case and was made to pay substantial damages. Now that the Invictus Games is postponed, I don’t think Harry will visit the UK during the summer as the press and Royal Family want him to do.
yes, people are really dumb, especially the Kate fans who are delighted in Harry’s loss. No, he didn’t lose, he WON and the MOS lied and admitted they lied. Luckily the rest of the world and the newspapers are reporting it and the MOS gets another loss attached to its name.
I was thinking about Keenbridge stans siding with the press. Are they stupid, do they not realise that by not challenging the media, they are giving them unlimited power to be able to do and say whatever the f*ck they want. How will that turn out for Kate? The media are basically holding the Keens hostage, and when the time comes once the royals are done with her, Kate will be their new target.
Now I disagree with this idiotic judge. Venting your issues is exactly why you are suing them . And that should pay his lawyers fees because if they asses didn’t lie he won’t be in court. This Judge is a jackass
I admit I had to look up the word “tendentious” and imo, if I’m understanding all of this right, the judge didn’t even use it correctly in this instance?
Anyway, this is all so stupid. I hope Harry and Meghan clean up at the end of all of this and win on all of the main issues.
@Lorelei – tendentious can suggest that someone has made up his or her mind in advance and won’t budge from their opinion, so I don’t think the word was misused by the judge. I think he was wrongly implying that Harry’s statement was based on emotion instead of a bipartisan examination of the issue. In any event the judge sounds like a pompous twatwaffle.
@Lorelei, i read this as the judge saying “this case isn’t about grinding all your axes and setting the story straight for all the ways you feel the MoS has wronged you. Keep it to the lawsuit.”
He still got some court costs, just not the full amount he asked (according to this article he asked for 35k, got 2500) and then it seems he also got significant damages that he donated directly to Invictus, since the DM/MoS never made the donation to Invictus they promised.
I dont think having to amend his statement was that big a deal – the judge probably read it, thought “yeesh, this is not the forum” and so Harry’s lawyers said what they needed to say outside of court. The big story is that they issued an apology and had to pay Harry damages.
On the Invictus thing it was worse than that. ANL lost the case and were forced to pay damages to Harry and issue an apology/retraction. They buried the so-called apology somewhere not prominent AND in it had the sheer brass neck to try and make themselves look better by taking the credit for donating the damages to Invictus. In actual fact they, as would be expected, had to pay the damages to Harry and HE was the one who decided to donate them all to Invictus – hence why his press release said:
“Unsurprisingly, The Mail again misled their readers in December by claiming to make a charitable donation as part of an initial apology. They did no such thing. The duke is personally donating the significant damages recovered from this legal resolution to the Invictus Games Foundation.”
I mean, I didnt say anything contrary to that – they never made the donation they said they made, and Harry donated his damages to Invictus.
I do think that the printed apologies should be required to be more prominent than they are, its BS that these papers can run whatever story they want and then there’s a little “oops!” on page 30 or wherever.
I agree. I don’t blame the judge saying that the court room wasn’t the forum for Harry to make his statement. Harry has other means to make his press statements.
And we all know the tabloids will try to pretend the world can’t tell shit from Shinola (as they say in the south).
Let me see if I got this correct:
The Judge awarded Harry two separate “monetary judgements”, court costs and damages.
Harry got a 2,500 pound payment for “Court Cost” then got a second payment of an undisclosed amount for “Damages” that he donated to the Invictus Games.
Is my above statements correct?
@BayTampaBay I stress I am NO legal expert but that is my understanding, yes.
@Becks1 – sorry, didn’t mean to cause confusion. You said that Harry “donated directly to Invictus since the DM never made the donation to Invictus they promised” . I took that to mean that your understanding was that the DM had undertaken to donate to Invictus and when they didn’t, Harry did. My point was that I don’t think Invictus even entered the DM’s head. They paid Harry. He decided to donate it to Invictus. Then the DM tried to pretend that HIS donation was from them and their idea. So yeah. If I were Hazza I’d be more angry if I donated to a charity and the DM tried to pretend it was their donation than if the DM failed to donate something they had promised and I then stepped in.
And ITA on the apology thing.
Um. I’ll now get back in my box 🙂
Yup. The 2500GBP seems to be for writing/reading the statement in court. The 35,000GBP could have been the cost of Harry’s lawyers for that day. The case received global coverage so it did at least reverse any PR damage that ANL could have initially caused with their article. However, how it affects recipients of these charitable work in future is something else.
I haven’t read the actual decision, which would clear this up, but were damages awarded or was it an out of court settlement and then Harry got costs for having to bring the action in the first place? Normally a judgment is public record so I am wondering why we haven’t seen an actual number relating to that.
Normally cases that settle don’t have the settlement amount as public record because there is usually a confidentiality clause about it.
Where is the UK database for court decisions?
Another point, I wish they would also be able to sue the stupid people on Twitter who smear them – so many are saying Harry will just keep the money. I mean, what kind of world do we live in where we can slander people right, left and center and not be held accountable for it? Not to mention all the people who were thrilled today that ‘the Palace put Meghan in her place, what a liar she is’ yadda yadda…
There are still crazy stories going around Twitter and The Daily Fail comment sections that Meghan & Harry embezzled money from the Cambridge-Sussex Foundation for their own personal purse when the this “so called stolen money” was actually transferred to the global initiative Travalyst.
I would counter with asking them where the Cambridges donated their money from the paparazzi case in France. We were never told where the money got donated. Or if it ever was.
Interesting the UK don’t allow victim impact statements in court. Where they should be held. I mean wasn’t that the point of the case?
I think victim impact statements are only allowed in criminal court and parole hearings. As far as I know this was just a civil lawsuit.
It’s standard practice to ask for all of your costs (higher than you know you’re going to get) because you know the judge will never give you the full amount, but you’ll get something. So you ask for $$$$ but end up getting $. It’s not a “loss”. It’s just the way you do it. If Harry had asked for $2,500, he would’ve gotten $500 (or something like that). This is a non-story.
Exactly. You never get full legal costs in civil actions. Depending on the jurisdiction you can sometimes get about two thirds of them, but normally you are lucky to get half. The costs he got were commensurate with an action that was quickly resolved.
The statement that was published was pretty strongly worded so I can only imagine what was taken out. It sounds like Harry wanted a more wide sweeping condemnation. Not just of the specific article but of the editorial/ownership positions of the mail. Based on the case the judge wanted him to keep it specific. But look the law firm that is representing Harry is not stupid. I think they went in with a statement that they knew would not be completely approved. They knew the content of the statement would be reviewed by the judge. So like in any negotiation by asking for more than what you want you end up getting what you really want. Yes. The tabloids are treating it like a victory but around the world the attention is on Harry’s win and what he said about the tabloids.
Maybe his original statement touched on the ongoing behaviour of these tabloids towards his wife and child? If so, I can understand the judge wanting to keep comments to this specific case, and not bring Meghan’s treatment into it. Just speculating, of course.
I’m also 100% on board with Harry making a strong statement in court to show he won’t be bullied, likely knowing (he seems to have good lawyers) that he might be required to edit it down.
I am imagining the original letter included the phrase ‘muthafu&*s go to he!! and leave us da fuq alone.’
In a fantasy world, I would love to have my day in court with the Daily Mail. Their hatred and divisive rhetoric have done such harm to communities and many individuals. I’m glad Harry and Meghan were at the very least awarded damages but so much needs to be done to hold the vitriol of British media to account.