Law firm at the heart of Prince Harry's disastrous hacking claim against the Daily Mail's publisher calls in insolvency experts
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A law firm at the heart of Prince Harry’s disastrous failed hacking claim against the Daily Mail’s publisher has called in insolvency experts, it was reported last night.
Thomson Heath Jenkins is said to have summoned the practitioners and its office has closed. One source in the company told The Telegraph it had been ‘a shock for staff’.
The law firm fronted one of the biggest legal battles in recent times: the sensational hacking trial brought against Mail publisher Associated Newspapers by the Duke of Sussex and six other well-known claimants, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Sir Elton John, his husband David Furnish, model Liz Hurley, actress Sadie Frost and former Lib Dem justice minister Sir Simon Hughes.
In July, the High Court exonerated the Mail, throwing out every single one of the 97 allegations against its journalists whom Harry and his fellow claimants had accused of criminal activity by phone hacking, landline tapping, car tracking and other unlawful means of gathering information.
After the three-month trial, the duke and his co-claimants lost comprehensively, with the judge describing Mail journalists as honest, truthful, straightforward, careful, impressive, convincing and credible.
Harry and co were presented with a bill up to £34.5million in costs after the High Court ruled their ‘inadequate’ case had been ‘unreasonable to a high degree’.
Prince Harry, shown here in his most recent interview, comprehensively lost his hacking case against the publisher of the Daily Mail
In August, Mr Justice Nicklin granted a rare ‘indemnity order’ obliging them to pay extra costs, concluding that not only did they lose their ‘speculative’ case but they knew even before launching it that the evidence was insufficient.
After the July ruling, the duke issued a statement implying the judge was biased and branding his 426-page ruling ‘a complete and obvious whitewash’.
Since then, a deadline has passed for Harry’s side to lodge any appeal with the trial judge.
Thomson Heath Jenkins was one of the firms of solicitors who spearheaded the disastrous case.
The claimants lodged it in October 2022 and the damaging allegations were maintained for over four years, in spite of weak evidence, until Mr Justice Nicklin quashed every one of them.
Solicitor Mark Thomson, who founded the company in 2009 and owns 100 per cent of the shares, personally represented Ms Frost and Sir Simon. In total, seven lawyers from the firm worked on the case.
Mr Thomson gave evidence during the case. In the witness box, he told the judge that Dr Evan Harris and Graham Johnson, researchers working for his own clients, were ‘overexcited’ or perhaps simply ‘trying to impress Hugh Grant’ when they declared in various messages that they had gathered critical information from a whistleblower.
Last night Thomson Heath Jenkins was contacted for comment but there was no response.
Only last week, the law firm announced it was ‘thrilled to share that we have once again secured our high ranking’ in industry bible Chambers & Partners UK Guide 2027. It said the firm had been recognised for its ‘strong privacy and reputation management department’.
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