Prince Harry’s bitter, years-long feud with Britain’s tabloid press will come to a head this week. He is scheduled to take the stand on Tuesday in a London court to sue the Mirror newspaper group for allegedly hacking his cellphone a decade ago.
King Charles III’s youngest son’s appearance on the witness stand is a milestone for the House of Windsor – he is the first senior royal to be cross-examined in a legal case since the 19th century – and it’s likely not his family will relish it.
Harry, also known as the Duke of Sussex, may face embarrassing questions about his personal life and relationships with other members of the royal family before meeting his wife, Meghan. Harry has been estranged from his father Charles and his older brother Prince William since he and Meghan stepped back from royal duties in 2020 and moved from Britain to Southern California.
Members of the royal family prefer to settle legal claims rather than undergo court scrutiny. William settled a phone-hacking case against Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper group, Newsgroup, in 2020 for a “huge sum” of money, which Harry claimed in a separate legal filing earlier this year.
So far, Harry has brushed aside any opportunities to settle down, turning his campaign against the tabloid press into one of his life’s animating causes. He also blamed the tabloids for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, in a car crash in 1997 after being chased by photographers.
As well as the Mirror Group, Harry is suing News Group, which publishes The Sun and The Times, and the publisher of The Daily Mail. He and Meghan are suing Britain’s Home Office for removing his police protection after he shirked his duties.
In an April 2020 letter to the editors of four London tabloids, Harry and Meghan denounced them as irresponsible and irresponsible, saying that they would ruin people’s lives “for no good reason, other than the fact that it increases advertising revenue”.
The Mirror Group inquiry focused on allegations that the papers hacked Harry’s cellphone in the early 2000s, as well as the cellphones of his brother, assistant and ex-girlfriend. Harry is one of four plaintiffs, including two actors who appeared in the popular British TV series “Coronation Street.”
Lawyers for the Mirror Group argue that Harry and three other plaintiffs waited too long to sue for acts that took place between 1991 and 2011. The Mirror admitted it had engaged in phone hacking in 2014 and it published a front page the following February. Apologies to victims of the practice.
The trial promises to be a media spectacle, putting the spotlight on Harry’s bachelor life before becoming a husband and father. Among the bold-faced names it resurrects is Chelsea Davy, who he once dated.
In a legal filing, Harry’s lawyer, David Sherborne, said Ms. Details gleaned from Davy’s intercepted voice mail messages led to intrusive articles, which put a strain on Harry and his relationship with her.
In one case, in September 2009 Ms. There was a series of suspicious calls to Davey’s cellphone. Within days, two Mirror Group papers carried the headlines “Chelsea’s Harry’d Enough” and “Chelsea breakup ‘on the cards'”. Both articles discuss the couple’s impending split in intimate detail.
Despite extreme efforts to keep the details of her life a secret – Ms. Harry’s lawyer said reporters frequented places the couple agreed to meet – including Davy traveling under a pseudonym.
“This has caused the couple to lose trust in several friends and feel undue pressure on their relationship,” says Mr. Written by Sherborne. He said the scrutiny caused Harry “extreme distress and embarrassment, but not because of concerns about security for him and his security staff”.
In addition to arguing that Harry waited too long to file a lawsuit, the Mirror Group Mirror Group said Ms. Suspected about hacking Davey’s phone. Her lawyer said the calls were possibly made seeking comment following reports that she and Harry had split.
Furthermore, by 2009, employees of another tabloid, Mr. Murdoch’s News of the World, jailed for phone hacking. That was unlikely, lawyers said, adding that the Mirror’s journalists risked intercepting voicemail messages from Harry or Miss Davy.
Harry’s testimony could shine a spotlight on prominent British television broadcaster Piers Morgan, who was editor of The Daily Mirror between 1995 and 2004, during which he is accused of phone hacking. Mr Morgan has long denied any involvement in hacking or commissioning articles based on it, although Harry’s lawyers said it was hard to imagine him not knowing about it.
Mr Morgan has since become a fierce critic of Harry and Meghan. When an ITV reporter asked about the inquiry recently, he said, “I’m not going to take lectures about invasion of privacy from Prince Harry, a man who has ruthlessly and cynically invaded the royal family’s privacy for huge commercial gain over the last three years. And told lies about him.”
