Max Mosley offered to ‘tempt’ phone hacker to provide evidence against Daily Mail, court told

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The late Formula 1 boss Max Mosley offered to “tempt” a convicted phone hacker into providing evidence against the Daily Mail by paying him, the newspaper’s publisher has told the High Court in London.

Associated Newspapers set out its defence on Tuesday, the second day of the celebrity phone hacking trial.

Prince Harry is bringing the case alongside stars including Sir Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley over claims the publisher used unlawful methods to generate stories about them.

Lawyers for Associated claim that the legal action is a “co-ordinated strategy” by anti-press campaigners and that evidence has been obtained through “financial inducements and threats”.

Antony White KC, for the publisher, told the court the litigation appeared to have been funded in part by Mosley, who became a prominent privacy campaigner after lurid details of his sex life were published by the News of the World. He died in 2021 at the age of 81.

Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator who was jailed over the phone hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s now defunct News of the World title, had been “exculpatory” of Associated, White said in a written submission.

But the barrister said Mulcaire was “put under significant financial and emotional pressure” to make allegations about Associated.

Associated’s lawyers cited an email in 2015 from Mosley in which the former Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile president suggested he meet Mulcaire and “try to tempt him”.

“I could make very clear: no tickee, no monkee,” he wrote. “I’m not optimistic . . . but perhaps it’s worth a try?”

White contended that Mulcaire went on to be placed on the “payroll” of the claimants but had since “withdrawn his co-operation”. Mulcaire has not been called as a witness.

David Sherborne, representing the claimants, said there was “compelling” evidence for unlawful activity at Associated and that its claims of a “conspiracy” were “spurious”.

He said there was “clear documentary evidence” that Mulcaire engaged in unlawful information gathering.

In a written submission Sherborne said it was Associated that had paid “vast amounts” to private investigators, commissioning them to gather information about the personal lives of celebrity targets.

The court heard on Tuesday that the Duke of Sussex was complaining about 14 articles, including stories about past romances, which Sherborne said were based on “repeated, sustained and covert acquisition of private information”.

Associated denied gathering the information unlawfully, saying the stories were sourced from legitimate sources such as contacts and public records.

The prince may testify in the case on Wednesday, earlier than expected. Other claimants include actor Sadie Frost, former Liberal Democrat MP Sir Simon Hughes and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, mother of the murdered teenager Stephen.

The trial, which opened on Monday, is expected to last up to 10 weeks.