On Tuesday, Prince Harry's legal team will appear in a London court as he continues his legal battle against Britain's tabloid press. This time, he is taking on Rupert
Murdoch's News Group Newspapers (NGN) over allegations of phone-hacking. Harry initiated legal action against NGN in September 2019, just before he and his wife Meghan left their royal duties and moved to California. NGN, publisher of the Sun tabloid and the now-defunct News of the World, has paid out millions of pounds to settle hundreds of phone-hacking cases. During the three-day preliminary hearing, NGN will seek to strike out claims made by Prince Harry and British actor Hugh Grant against the Sun, arguing that they should have acted sooner.
Prince Harry has filed four lawsuits in the High Court in London against British newspapers, accusing them of using illegal means to invade his or his wife's privacy or lying about them. This claim against NGN could be particularly sensitive for Australian-born media mogul Murdoch's British newspaper group. In 2012, it issued an apology for widespread hacking carried out by journalists at the News of the World, which Murdoch shut down amid a backlash. However, it has always denied any unlawful activity at the Sun, which was previously edited by Rebekah Brooks, now chief executive of Murdoch's British arm News UK. Brooks has always denied knowledge of phone-hacking and was found not guilty in 2014 of involvement following a criminal trial.
An NGN spokesperson said, "The Sun does not accept liability or make any admissions to the allegations." They added, "As we reach the tail end of litigation, NGN is drawing a line under disputed matters, some of which date back more than 20 years ago." Last week, Murdoch's Fox Corp. settled a U.S. defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million, but reports suggest that figure is dwarfed by the British phone-hacking scandal. In 2021, the Press Gazette estimated that phone-hacking had cost NGN more than £1 billion ($1.24 billion), and in its accounts last year, the group stated that it might need to spend a further £100 million.
During the trial against Brooks and others, the News of the World's former royal editor, Clive Goodman, said that in the mid-2000s, he had hacked the voicemails of Prince Harry, as well as those of his elder brother Prince William, now the heir to the throne, and William’s wife Kate. The court was told that Kate's phone was hacked 155 times, William's 35 times, and Harry's nine times.
Prince Harry claims that he was "vaguely" aware of this in 2005 as part of claims he has brought against another publisher, Associated Newspapers. However, he says he only realized he could sue NGN in 2018, accusing Buckingham Palace of withholding information from him. Last month, he attended court in person to hear lawyers for Associated Newspapers, which publishes the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, seek to throw out a case brought by him and other high-profile figures, including singer Elton John. The publisher has rejected their accusations "in their entirety."
Next month, Prince Harry's lawyers will appear in court as part of litigation against the publisher of the Daily Mirror paper, which he and others are suing over allegations of phone-hacking. The prince is expected to give evidence in person in June. He is also suing Associated Newspapers for libel, and a decision on whether he can win that case without a trial is expected soon. Photo by DoD News Features, Wikimedia commons.