The Duke of Sussex and six others have lost their High Court privacy case against the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.
Judge Mr Justice Nicklin said the claimants had failed to prove the allegations of unlawful information gathering.
Prince Harry brought the case against Associated Newspapers, along with a number of well-known figures, including Sir Elton John, Sir Simon Hughes, Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost and Baroness Doreen Lawrence.
They claimed that the newspaper group used unlawful methods for getting information for stories, allegations which were strenuously denied by Associated Newspapers.
A spokesperson for the publisher described the judgment as an “overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists”.
In a summary of his ruling, Mr Justice Nicklin concluded the allegations were serious and therefore required more convincing evidence before being proven.
He said the seven claimants could not rely on “suspicion, even where understandable”. Instead, he said they had to prove information had been obtained unlawfully.
Mr Justice Nicklin refused to make a finding as to whether what became known as unlawful information gathering had become “widespread and habitual” at Associated Newspapers and instead decided the merits of each individual claim.
He said he accepted the denials of Associated Newspaper journalists “who gave lawful explanations for the sourcing of the disputed articles and incidents”.
He ruled that the claimants had also failed to prove three senior Associated executives – former editors Paul Dacre and Peter Wright, and current senior lawyer for the publisher Elizabeth Hartley – had lied in their evidence to the Leveson Inquiry where they said there was no unlawful activity at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.
In his full judgment Mr Justice Nicklin examined each claimed breach of privacy, and often noted that there was suspicion about how information was obtained by the journalists.
In one article, the Daily Mail’s Royal Editor wrote in 2013 that Prince Harry faced a lonely New Year’s Eve without his girlfriend Cressida Bonas.
It was claimed a freelance journalist was asked to “blag” travel details for Ms Bonas.
Prince Harry said in a witness statement this was “creepy” and he did not know how the newspaper could have obtained the information about the couple’s separate whereabouts.
Mr Justice Nicklin said: “I accept that he found the article intrusive and was genuinely concerned by how journalists appeared to know private information concerning his relationships. But suspicion, even understandable suspicion, is not proof.”
