Paul Dacre speaking in the BBC’s documentary Stephen: The Murder that Changed a Nation Picture: BBC Ex-Daily Mail editor 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 by Prince 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, …