David Furnish calls alleged phone tapping by Daily Mail publisher an ‘abomination’
By Jess Glass and Callum Parke, Press Association
Filmmaker David Furnish called the alleged stealing of information and tapping of his and Sir Elton John’s landline an “abomination”, the High Court has heard in the trial of his claim against the Daily Mail’s publisher.
Furnish and his singer-songwriter husband Elton John are part of a group of household names, also including the Duke of Sussex and actress Liz Hurley, bringing legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).
The couple allege 10 articles about them between 2002 and 2015 were based on unlawful information gathering, including unlawfully obtained medical information.
ANL has strongly denied wrongdoing, with lawyers for the publisher previously telling the court that the claims made by John and Furnish are “unsupported by any evidence before the court and utterly baseless”.
On the fourteenth day of the trial on Thursday, Furnish gave evidence remotely, appearing via videolink at the court in London.
In his written evidence, the filmmaker said he and John “have a long and difficult history with The Mail”.
He continued: “For years they have been actively homophobic.
“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.
“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.”
In written submissions, Antony White KC and Catrin Evans KC, both for ANL, said the social circles of most of the group of household names bringing the claims were “leaky”.
They continued: “Their friends, and friends of friends or associates, did regularly provide information to the press about the claimants’ private lives, for obvious reasons on a confidential basis.”
The barristers later said that John’s spokesman at the time “regularly provided the media, including Associated journalists, with information about their lives”, including health information.
Asked about his social circle during his cross-examination on Thursday, Evans suggested to Furnish that “from time to time you would be happy to chat to journalists”.
Furnish responded: “I really try to avoid them at all costs.”
She later said: “It was likely that individuals in your social circle thought it was all right to do the same thing.”
Furnish replied: “I don’t agree with that conclusion.”
Evans later asked whether the filmmaker agreed that his social circle was “wider than friends and family”, with Furnish telling the court that people who were not his friends would not know his private information.
John and Furnish have two children, Zachary and Elijah, both of whom were born using a surrogate.
The court was previously told the pair felt the safety of their children had been “violated” by alleged unlawful news-gathering, including the alleged “stealing” of Zachary’s birth certificate before the couple had received a copy.
Discussing an article about this in his written evidence, Furnish said: “The Mail used the birth certificate story to feed into their homophobic agenda.
“They paired it with unflattering photos of Elton and me leaving a fancy dress party and mocked us with a caption casting me as the ‘mother’ and Elton as the ‘father’.
“It was deeply offensive but entirely in keeping with their attitude toward us.”
In written submissions, ANL’s lawyers said that the article was “entirely legitimately” sourced from previously published reports of the child’s birth, information from the local registrar’s office as well as a statement from agency the Centre for Surrogate Parenting.
Furnish told the court in his oral evidence that neither he or John had given the surrogacy agency permission for the statement, adding: “We had a very carefully planned media strategy.”
Furnish was later questioned about another article in his and John’s claim about the singer having to cancel tour dates for medical reasons in 2009.
Evans said that the medical information in the article was taken from a public statement, media reporting and statements from spokespeople.
She later asked: “Would you accept that the article that you are claiming about here was reporting in fact a public statement made on Sir Elton’s own website and also contained further reporting of the information which had been put out by your or Sir Elton’s spokesman?”
Furnish said in response: “The information in the article that was concerning was the information about the treatment that Elton had undertaken.
“When you cancel show dates, you have to give fans reassurance, but you don’t want to have to reveal 100% of what is going on medically.
“He had to have a series of X-rays and scans…. it was the specific detail in that article about the treatment that he had undergone that was surprising and of concern.”
The trial before Justice Nicklin is due to conclude in March, with a judgment in writing due at a later date.
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