Elton John, Prince Harry and a group of high-profile British public figures have lost their long-running High Court case against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, in a judgement handed down on Tuesday 7 July. The claimants alleged that the newspapers had unlawfully gathered information about them by hacking messages, tapping landlines and obtaining medical records, but Mr Justice Matthew Nicklin ruled that they had failed to prove these allegations of unlawful information gathering. The outcome represents a significant defeat for the celebrities and a notable win for the newspaper group, which had consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Alongside John and his husband David Furnish, the claimants included actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, campaigner Doreen Lawrence and former MP Sir Simon Hughes. The judge, following a 10-week trial at London's High Court that began in January, said the court had rejected attempts to prove the claims "by broad inference" where a lawful source pathway remained possible, and noted it could not rule on whether such practices were "widespread and habitual". An ANL spokesperson described the ruling as "a magnificent vindication of the Daily Mail's journalism", said its journalists had been "exonerated", and indicated the company would seek to recover its legal costs; Elton John's team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.