Granted, everything I’ve learned about Britain’s legal system is via Prince Harry’s various lawsuits and court cases, but it’s shocking to me that everything over there is so clownish? On Tuesday, a High Court judge tossed out the entire lawsuit against ANL/The Daily Mail. The same judge used to represent tabloids like the Daily Mirror just a handful of years ago, but there was seemingly no move to get this judge to recuse himself. Now the Times of London has a big exclusive about the litigants’ attempt to “strike a deal” with ANL before trial. This attempt did not come through the lawyers representing Prince Harry and his co-plaintiffs, meaning some random guy claiming to represent the plaintiffs’ interests did a backdoor approach to ANL and was rebuffed, and now ANL is leaking it to the Times?

Prince Harry and six other well-known figures who sued over alleged privacy breaches attempted to strike a deal with Associated Newspapers in the weeks before the trial started. The Times can reveal that representatives for the litigants approached a retired senior police detective to act as an intermediary and approach the publisher in an effort to settle the row in advance of Harry giving evidence to the High Court.

However, it is understood the offer to discuss a possible settlement was rejected outright by Associated, publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday.

The nearly three-month High Court trial went ahead and in a devastating judgment handed down on Tuesday, Mr Justice Nicklin rejected all the claims against the publisher. Harry and his co-claimants now face up to £50 million in legal bills. In a ruling running to more than 400 pages, Nicklin found that the claimants — who included Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, Sir Elton John and Liz Hurley — had failed to prove any wrongdoing by the newspapers’ journalists. Senior figures at Associated have hailed the ruling as a vindication of the decision to defend the action in court.

It has now emerged that shortly before Christmas, only weeks prior to the trial starting in January, a former senior Fleet Street journalist acted for the claimants as a “back channel” to open unofficial negotiations between the two sides.

James Hanning, a former deputy editor of The Independent on Sunday, has confirmed that he was asked to explore the possibility of settlement talks between the claimants and the publisher. Hanning said that a second informal intermediary was involved as he approached the retired police officer who was known to and trusted by Stephen Wright, the Daily Mail’s associate editor and former crime reporter.

According to Hanning, the putative settlement offer amounted to “a suggestion to talk sensibly”. He added: “Any specific headings that were mentioned would have been ‘for discussion’. There was no suggestion of there being a ‘take it or leave it’ offer from the claimants.”

But ultimately the approach, which is understood not to have involved the lawyers on either side of the dispute, petered out when the newspapers were said to have “refused to engage at all”.

It is understood that the first approach by the claimants — who also included Sadie Frost and the former Liberal Democrat MP Sir Simon Hughes — was made last December and that if successful it would have avoided Harry giving evidence in court. Any deal could also have involved the suggestion that both sides “drop hands” and walk away from the litigation while bearing their own costs. However, the publisher rejected the informal offer and the trial went ahead, resulting in Tuesday’s judgment against the claimants.

[From The Times]

Is this genuinely how things work in the UK? Prince Harry, Elton John, Baroness Lawrence, et al, spent years building their case against the Mail and waiting for their day in court. And then on the eve of the trial, they used a “former senior Fleet Street journalist” to back-channel with ANL? Come on, this is a complete clownshow, not a functioning legal system. It does remind me of something though – ANL has never been averse to taking these issues to trial, because as we can see now, the system is mostly rigged in their favor. Meaning, Rupert Murdoch’s media groups ALWAYS settle out of court before trial. The Murdochs are completely trial-averse, they never want any of their issues to come to trial. It makes you think.

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