LIVE: Now Harry’s Phone Hacking Solicitors Go Bust!

The law firm at the heart of Prince Harry’s war on the British tabloids has gone bust. Thomson Heath Jenkins & Associates (the boutique London practice that acted for Harry, Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Elizabeth Hurley, Sadie Frost, Baroness Doreen Lawrence and Sir Simon Hughes in their failed privacy claim against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail) has reportedly shut its doors and called in insolvency practitioners. According to the Telegraph, the collapse came as a shock to staff. Just a week ago, the firm was still boasting on its website about its rankings in the Chambers & Partners 2027 guide. This was no bit-part player. Founded in 2009 by Cambridge graduate Mark Thomson, the firm built its reputation on phone hacking litigation and helped prove the generic case against Mirror Group Newspapers. Seven of its solicitors worked on the case against the Mail. But in July, after an eleven-week trial, Mr Justice Nicklin threw out every single one of the claimants’ allegations, ruling that suspicion is not proof. Harry and his co-claimants were then ordered to pay £9.5 million as a first instalment towards Associated’s legal costs, with the total bill for both sides estimated at £40 to £50 million. So where does this leave Harry? The claimants are pursuing an appeal, and they must now do so without the firm that ran their case, while staring down a potential multimillion-pound costs liability should they lose again. It is hard to imagine a more humiliating coda to what Harry called his “mission” to reform the British press. In this video, I explain what we know about the firm’s collapse, what it means for Harry’s appeal and his finances, and why the Duke’s long crusade against the tabloids is proving so ruinously expensive.

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