The former editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, is to be called as a witness in legal action brought by the Duke of Sussex and six other household names against the newspaper’s publishers over allegations of unlawful information gathering, the High Court has been told.
Antony White Casey, for Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), said Dacre, 77, now editor-in-chief of ANL’s DMG media company, and Peter Wright, the former editor of the Mail on Sunday, could be called as early defense witnesses in the trial, which begins on January 19.
“For a variety of reasons it is extremely important that Mr Dacre and Mr Wright are able to get to the top to deal with the “critically important” allegations before sending their troops into battle,” White told judge Mr Justice Nicklin at a pre-trial hearing.
David Sherborne, for the claimants, indicated that ANL wanted to call Dacre first in relation to “evidence given at the inquiry”, referring to the 2011–12 Leveson inquiry into press standards.
The publisher is being sued by Prince Harry, Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost, publicist Doreen Lawrence and former politician Sir Simon Hughes.
The claimants allege that ANL committed or commissioned illegal activities such as hiring private investigators to plant listening devices inside cars, “blagging” private records, and accessing private phone conversations. ANL vehemently denies the allegations.
The judge warned the claimants’ lawyers that he would not allow the case to “descend into a broad public inquiry” that would be “directed solely by what the claimants wish to highlight”. Nor would he allow “a series of rabbits out of a hat” to ambush witnesses.
His warning came after he granted the claimants’ legal team restricted access to records by private investigator Stephen Whittamore detailing his dealings with journalists. Sherborne told the judge that ANL had retained two of the notebooks after they were produced at the Leveson inquiry.
Sherborne had argued that the fact that the claimants were not able to access the books was “grossly unjust” and a “completely uneven playing field”.
The court has previously heard that private investigator Gavin Burrows had retracted a statement he allegedly made to the claimants in which he claimed they had targeted “hundreds, possibly thousands of people” through voicemail hacking, landline tapping and access to financial and medical information for a journalist at the Mail on Sunday.
Burroughs claimed that his signature on the statement was a “forgery”, a charge which Sherborne dismissed as “outrageous” and “a bizarre inclusion, intended to attack parts of the legal team”.
The trial, with legal costs estimated to reach £38 million, is expected to last nine weeks.
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