Former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has described allegations made by Baroness Doreen Lawrence against the paper’s publisher as “especially bewildering and bitterly wounding”, the High Court has been told.
The Duke of Sussex, Sir Elton John and Lady Lawrence are part of a group of seven high-profile individuals bringing legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over allegations of unlawful information gathering.
ANL has strongly denied wrongdoing and is defending the claims, which are also brought by David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost.
Mr Dacre, now editor-in-chief of ANL’s holding company DMG Media, entered the witness box on Tuesday afternoon as the first witness giving evidence in support of ANL’s defence.
During Mr Dacre’s tenure as editor, the Daily Mail campaigned to bring the killers of Lady Lawrence’s son Stephen to justice after his death in 1993.
On the front page of the paper’s February 14 1997 edition, the paper labelled five men – Gary Dobson, Neil Acourt, Jamie Acourt, Luke Knight, and David Norris – as “murderers” and challenged them to sue the newspaper for libel.
In her claim, Lady Lawrence alleges ANL had targeted her with hidden electronic surveillance, as well as tapping her landline, monitoring her bank account and making payments to police officers for confidential information, with the court told she felt “like a victim all over again”.
At the start of his evidence, Mr Dacre told the court: “My heart bleeds for Baroness Doreen Lawrence.”
In his written evidence, he said that it was “inconceivable” that anyone at the Daily Mail would have carried out the alleged activities.
Mr Dacre also said: “The claims of criminality made on behalf of Baroness Doreen Lawrence in relation to the Daily Mail’s 15-year campaign for her murdered son Stephen are especially bewildering and bitterly wounding to me personally.
“Throughout my 26-year editorship, this, of all my countless campaigns, many of which made a significant contribution to the public weal, is the campaign of which I am most proud and to which I devoted the most space.”
He also said it “simply defies reason” for the Daily Mail to use illegal methods to see if other newspapers were getting involved in the Lawrence campaign, later adding: “The suggestion that we ran the campaign to generate exclusive headlines, sell newspapers and profit is sickeningly misplaced and bleakly cynical.”
Cross-examining Mr Dacre, David Sherborne, for the group of household names, asked whether his involvement in the case “is motivated by a desire to protect your legacy” rather than getting a fair outcome.
Mr Dacre replied that while he did wish to clear his name, he also cared about the paper and “the honest and dedicated staff who work for it”.
Later in his written evidence, Mr Dacre said that the “grave and sometimes preposterous allegations” made in the case “have astonished, appalled and – in the small hours of the night – reduced me to rage”.
Mr Dacre later said the claims had had a “deeply upsetting” and sometimes “traumatic” impact on staff at the paper, adding: “I have witnessed the anguish of honest, dedicated journalists who, for three years now, have had an insidious dark shadow hanging over their lives.”
ANL’s barrister Antony White KC previously said that ANL was defending the claims both on their merits and for being brought too late and that the allegations in relation to Lady Lawrence “are denied in their entirety” and “are unsupported by the available evidence”.
He continued in written submissions: “In fact, the reality is that the information in each of the articles was obtained by entirely legitimate reporting and based on the sources identified by Associated in its defence and evidence.”
But Mr Sherborne previously told the London court that the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday had been engaged in unlawful information gathering over “at least two decades”, and “knew they had skeletons in their closet”.
He said: “There is evidence, indisputable evidence, in the documents that Associated journalists and senior executives were commissioning and approving the acquisition and use of unlawfully obtained information, and they must have known that.
“That is why we say this was no clean ship, far from it.”
Mr Sherborne later said that “smoke and mirrors” and “carefully orchestrated attacks” on the claimants could not “save Associated this time”.
He continued: “They have to live by their all-or-nothing defence.”
The trial before Mr Justice Nicklin is due to conclude in March, with a judgment in writing due at a later date.
