Two UK tabloids are facing serious allegations of phone hacking and unlawful information gathering in a landmark High Court trial involving Prince Harry and six other high-profile claimants.
On the second day of the anticipated nine-week hearing, Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday began mounting its defence against claims of privacy breaches.
The Allegations
Prince Harry, pop icon Elton John, his husband David Furnish, and four other public figures accuse ANL of:
- Illegally intercepting voicemail messages
- Listening in on private phone calls
- Deceptively obtaining confidential information
- Paying private investigators implicated in other phone-hacking lawsuits
The accusations span a period from 1993 to 2018, covering dozens of articles allegedly generated through unlawful means.
ANL’s Defence
Representing ANL, lawyer Antony White argued that the publisher relied on legitimate sources for its reporting. He stated that the defence will demonstrate, through a series of witnesses, that the contested articles were based on lawful journalistic practices.
“Overall, it provides a compelling account of a pattern of legitimate sourcing of articles,” White said, adding that the claims would imply “wholesale lying” by a large number of journalists something he described as inherently improbable.
He dismissed allegations of payments to private investigators as “clutching at straws in the wind.”
Prince Harry’s Legal Mission
This case marks the third and final lawsuit brought by Prince Harry against a British newspaper publisher. The Duke of Sussex has described his legal battles as part of his “mission” to hold tabloids accountable “for the greater good.”
Harry has long blamed the media for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a Paris car crash in 1997 while being pursued by paparazzi.
In 2023, Harry made history by becoming the first senior British royal in over a century to take the stand, testifying in his successful hacking claim against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN). Last year, he also settled a case against Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloid publisher, which agreed to pay him substantial damages for privacy breaches.
Claimants’ Case
Opening arguments for the claimants were delivered by lawyer David Sherborne, who asserted that ANL engaged in “clear and systematic use of unlawful gathering of information.”
Sherborne argued that the publisher’s years of emphatic denials were false, adding:
“ANL knew they had skeletons in their closet.”
He concluded that if the claimants succeed, the damages awarded will need to be significant given the scale of the alleged misconduct.
What’s Next
Prince Harry, who attended court on both Monday and Tuesday, may take the stand to give evidence as early as Wednesday. The trial is expected to run for nine weeks, with potentially far-reaching implications for press freedom, privacy rights, and accountability in the UK media industry.
