Judge Rules Mail On Sunday Article Defamatory

A High Court judge agreed with this interpretation, writing that the story could lead readers to believe that Harry was deliberately trying to confuse the public about the fairness of the legal process against the government.

“You may ‘spin’ the facts in a way that is not misleading, but the allegations made in the article are intended to mislead the public,” the judge wrote. “That provides the necessary elements to create the meaning of defamation at common law.”

Nicklin also ruled that the story’s description of how Harry and his lawyers went about trying to secure police protection from Home Office secrets met the threshold of defamation.

The “natural and ordinary” meaning of the Mail on Sunday article, Nicklin wrote, is that Harry “was therefore seeking a broad and unfair restriction of confidentiality and was rightly challenged by the Home Office on grounds of transparency and open justice.”

The Supreme Court Justice wrote that “the message is clear, in the title and [specific] paragraph” from the Mail on Sunday story meets the common law requirements for defamation.

Throughout the trial, Nicklin insisted that the decision was “the first phase in a libel claim.”

“The next step is for the defendant to file a defense against the claim. It will be a matter of determining later in the process whether the claim succeeds or fails, and on what basis,” wrote Nicklin.