Elton John accuses UK tabloid publisher of 'abhorrent' privacy breaches

LONDON (AFP): Pop icon Elton John on Friday accused the publisher of two UK tabloids of "abhorrent" privacy invasions "outside even the most basic standards of human decency" as he testified at London's High Court.

Giving evidence in the joint legal action against Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) — the publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday — John claimed the papers had unlawfully accessed his and his family's medical records.

Other complainants in the case include Prince Harry, King Charles III's younger son, and actor Liz Hurley.

"I have found The Mail's deliberate invasion into my medical health and medical details surrounding the birth of our son Zachary abhorrent and outside even the most basic standards of human decency," he wrote in a witness statement released as he began testifying by video link.

Wearing a green blazer and purple tie, the 78-year-old musician who has a rocky relationship with British tabloids appeared furious while giving evidence.

He and his husband David Furnish — who gave evidence on Thursday n accuse the UK publisher of using unlawful means to gather information used in 10 articles between 2000 and 2015.

Hurley, a friend of the couple, and Prince Harry both gave evidence in the first two weeks of the trial.

The seven claimants suing ANL also include actor Sadie Frost, and two other public figures.

The case "contains the most horrendous things in the world that you can ever suffer from a privacy point of view," John told the trial, which is in its third week and expected to last until March.

John alleged that "all three" of the family's landlines "were hacked, including the junction box at the end of the road".

"I was incensed," John told the court, adding that he has "never been afraid of fighting my corner... with the British press."

ANL has countered that evidence will prove it sourced its stories legitimately and that claims around the use of private investigators were "clutching at straws in the wind".

Lawyer Catrin Evans for the publisher suggested that for some Mail articles mentioned in the case, a "certain amount of the information... had already been put into the public domain".

In his written witness statement, John said: "I have devoted my life to my music but this does not mean deeply personal things which I have a right to deal with in private are fair game.

"It has been truly sickening for David and me to see the disclosure in our case, with Zachary as a target when he was just born, with David and me as targets, with me as a target when I was sick and unwell," he said.

John is an HIV/AIDS charity fundraiser and has been involved in the fight against AIDS since the late 1980s. In 1992 he established the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which has raised over £300 million since its inception, and a year later he began hosting his annual AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Party, which has since become one of the biggest high-profile Oscars parties in the Hollywood film industry. John was the chairman and director of Watford Football Club from 1976 to 1987, and again from 1997 to 2002, and is an honorary life president of the club. From the late 1970s to the late 1980s, John developed a severe addiction to drugs and alcohol, but has been clean and sober since 1990. In 2005 he entered a civil partnership with his long-term partner, the Canadian filmmaker David Furnish. They married in 2014, when same-sex marriage was legalised in England and Wales.

John has had more than fifty top-40 hits on the UK singles chart and US Billboard Hot 100, including nine number ones in both countries, as well as seven consecutive number-one albums in the US. He is the most successful solo artist in the history of the US Billboard charts. His tribute single to Diana, Princess of Wales, "Candle in the Wind 1997", a rewritten version of his 1974 single, sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling chart single of all time.