On 10 November 2023 , Mr Justice Nicklin handed down judgment  [2023] EWHC 2789 (KB) in relation to misuse of private information claims brought by seven claimants against Associated Newspapers.

The claims were brought by Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, Elizabeth Hurley, Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex and Sadie Frost Law.  The judgment concerned two applications made by Associated Newspapers; one for summary judgment against the seven claimants on limitation grounds and one for restriction of the Claimants’ reliance on documentation provided to the Leveson Inquiry.  We had a news report at the time.

Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed the application made by Associated Newspapers for summary judgment against the seven claimants on limitation grounds.

However, Mr Justice Nicklin upheld the Defendant’s objections to the Claimants’ reliance on certain documents such as ledger cards from the Leveson Inquiry, although noting that:

“The Claimants could seek the variation (or revocation) of the Final Restriction Order by the relevant Minister(s) (see [295] above), in which case the Court may well be persuaded to grant a short stay of the proceedings to allow them to do so. Alternatively, the Claimants could, by amendment, remove those parts of the Particulars of Claim that have relied upon information drawn from the Ledgers. Whether, and the extent to which, any parts that the Claimants remove from the Particulars of Claim could be reinserted at a later point, would depend upon the course the litigation takes and particularly the disclosure phase. A further option would be for Associated, now, to give voluntary disclosure and inspection of the Ledgers to the Claimants, but that is not something that the Court can order on this application. Whichever option is adopted, the position regarding use of the Ledgers must be regularised”. [309]

Following this judgment, the Claimants made an application to the relevant Secretaries of States to vary the Final Restriction Order, to allow use of the ledger cards.

It was announced today that The Rt Hon Lucy Frazer MP, the Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, and The Rt Hon James Cleverly MP, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, had made the decision to vary the Restriction Order to allow the use of the ledger cards for the purpose of the proceedings. The variation notice is available here. They have also released the following joint statement:

This is a joint statement with the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

As Ministers with joint responsibility for the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practices, and ethics of the press, today under section 20(7) of the Inquiries Act 2005, we have decided to vary the Final Restriction Order (FRO) issued by Sir Brian Leveson on 29 November 2012. This variation, at the requests of the claimants, will allow documentation provided to the Leveson Inquiry to be disclosed for the purposes of the legal proceedings following the claims brought against Associated Newspapers Limited by Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, Elizabeth Hurley, Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex and Sadie Frost Law.

The following documents will therefore be disclosed for the purposes of the legal proceedings:

    • Daily Mail ledger cards recording payments to private investigators.
    • The Mail on Sunday ledger cards recording payments to private investigators.

We do not consider that it is necessary in the public interest to withhold these documents from any disclosure or publication and have decided to vary the FRO so as to allow the disclosure of these documents solely for the purposes of the proceedings. In this case, in our judgement, the public interest in promoting the just, speedy and economic resolution of the proceedings outweighs the countervailing public interests.

A variation notice has been shared with the parties to the legal proceedings, and published on gov.uk.

This decision makes no comment on the merits of the Proceedings, which is wholly a matter for the courts to determine.

Mark Thomson, Senior Partner at Thomson Heath Jenkins & Associates and co-founder of Inforrm.