"Four years ago, lawyers for Prince Harry, Dorian Lawrence and Elton John accused the Mail in a blaze of publicity of placing bugs in homes, cars, cafes and landline phones. We described those charges, some related to stories that were over 30 years old, as lurid and preposterous. Today, in what was a momentous victory for the Mail, the High Court dismissed every single one of the 97 claims. That is an overwhelming vindication of our journalism. The Mail's famous front page, naming five thugs as Stephen Lawrence's murderers, could have seen me jailed for contempt of court. Instead, it triggered the McPherson inquiry and the eventual jailing of two of the killers. Stephen's father, Neville, says he owes the Mail everything. Why Baroness Lawrence, for whom we have always had profound respect and sympathy, chose to turn on both the paper and the brilliant reporter who campaigned for justice for her son for over two decades is something I will never be able to comprehend. Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn't a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him to complain about his privacy being invaded takes not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, likes the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break-up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail's superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action, which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time, should never have been brought to trial. That it did raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today's verdict is not just a victory for associated magnificent journalists, several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives."