David Furnish has said it is “an abomination” that the publisher of the Daily Mail was able to write “narrow-minded” stories about him and his husband, Elton John, using information allegedly secured by unlawful means.
In evidence submitted to the high court, Furnish said he and John had been “violated” by the Mail, after being told that it had worked with private detectives to intercept their phone calls and personal details.
“While the Mail have partly moved with the times, they have also published countless judgmental and narrow-minded stories about us – pieces clearly designed to undermine who we are and how we live our lives,” Furnish said in a written submission.
“To know that they were enabled to do this to us through stolen information, and setting private investigators on us, and landline tapping and recording our live telephone calls is an abomination.”
Furnish and John are part of a group of seven claimants, including Prince Harry, who accuse Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) of ordering unlawful information gathering to secure stories.
ANL denies all the allegations. In written submissions, ANL’s legal team said all the claims made in relation to Furnish and John were “groundless and unsupported by the evidence before the court”.
It said the articles being challenged were sourced variously from journalists’ contacts, the couple’s spokesperson, statements issued by their office, freelance journalists, photographers, news agencies and prior articles.
Furnish, who gave evidence to the high court via an occasionally faulty video link, said he initially assumed stories must have come from leaks. However, he said he was approached by his friend, the actor Elizabeth Hurley, in February 2021 about allegations relating to the Mail’s use of unlawful tactics.
“We are very grateful that Elizabeth called us,” he said in a written submission. “If she hadn’t, we wouldn’t know what had happened and would never have known that the law had been broken and our private home and private lives barged into, violated by the Mail.”
Hurley informed them of allegations that a private investigator, Gavin Burrows, had admitted intercepting and recording live telephone conversations at their Windsor home for the Mail on Sunday.
However, ANL said Burrows had now stated that he was “never involved in any investigation work in relation to Elton John” and “never intercepted communications relating to … anyone else who had anything to do with Elton John”.
John and Furnish are alleging voicemail interceptions and other unlawful information gathering techniques were used in 10 articles, published from 2000 to 2015. They also allege two separate episodes of unlawful information gathering, which did not lead to an article.
The pair allege that one 2009 article about John cancelling tour dates because he was unwell was developed with unlawful access to John’s medical information. However, Catrin Evans, a barrister for ANL, said the information was taken from a medical statement from John’s “own website” and from statements made by their spokesperson.
However, Furnish said they were concerned by the “specific detail” about his treatment in the article.
The pair claimed another article from August 2015, about John being taken ill in Monaco, also contained private information. However, Evans said similar information had appeared in the French press.
Evans suggested Furnish’s social circle would give information to journalists. Furnish said his friends knew not to share private information about his family. He said that while he may engage in “harmless chitchat”, he had mastered “the art of saying nothing” when confronted with journalists.
ANL also said John’s former spokesperson and publicist, Gary Farrow, “regularly provided the media, including Associated journalists, with information about their lives”. It said that included health and medical related information that the couple are now complaining about.
It said the claimants’ researchers and legal team were simply trying to link records of payments to private investigators with articles “loosely proximate in time to the payment record, which they claim to believe contain ‘hallmarks’ of unlawful activity.
ANL’s legal team said this approach was “unsupported by any evidence before the court and utterly baseless”.
The case continues.
