Ex-Daily Maileditor Paul Dacre has described allegations of phone hacking, tapping and illegal newsgathering levelled against his former team as “grave and sometimes preposterous”.

In written evidence to the privacy trial being brought byPrince Harry and others against the paper, he repeatedly emphasised the high editorial standards and family values he said characterised the Daily Mail during his time as editor and editor-in-chief from 1992 to 2018.

During this period his journalists are accused of illegally accessing phone and medical records and using unlawful surveillance techniques to invade the private lives of Sir Elton John, Liz Hurley, Baroness Doreen Lawrence and others.

Dacre said: “I captained a tough ship which employed some of Fleet Street’s best writers and produced some remarkable journalism…

“The grave and sometimes preposterous allegations made in these proceedings have astonished, appalled and – in the small hours of the night – reduced me to rage.

“Equally, they have had a deeply upsetting and, in some instances, traumatic impact on many of the Daily Mail’s staff, both present and past (more than a few of them now retired with several having died or suffering from debilitating illnesses). I have witnessed the anguish of honest, dedicated journalists who, for three years now, have had an insidious dark shadow hanging over their lives.”

He said the claims brought by Baroness Lawrence in relation to the Mail’s 15-year campaign to secure justice for her murdered son Stephen “are especially bewildering and bitterly wounding to me personally”.

“Throughout my 26-year editorship this, of all my countless campaigns, many of which made a significant contribution to the public weal, is the campaign of which I am most proud and to which I devoted the most space.”

He also voiced his regret that several key players involved in the case are no longer alive to give evidence including: chief lawyer Eddie Young, executive editor Robin Esser, former diary writer Nigel Dempster and former editorial executive Paul Field.

Baroness Lawrence has claimed that Daily Mail journalist Stephen Wright targeted her with landline tapping, hacking, bugging and hidden electronic surveillance, obtained her and her family’s telephone records, made payments to corrupt police officers for confidential information and monitored her bank accounts.

Source: Press Gazette