Prince Harry's longtime battle with the British tabloids reaches its climax Tuesday.
A judge in London's High Court will rule on the Duke of Sussex's privacy invasion lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail, ending a trio of lawsuits that accused the news media of unlawfully snooping on his life.
Harry and six others are seeking substantial damages in the celebrity-studded lawsuit where the legal costs for the 11-week trial have been estimated at about $53.5 million.
Harry, singer Elton John and actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost are among those who accused Associated Newspapers Ltd. of tapping their phones, intercepting voicemails and obtaining personal information through deception.
The newspapers denied the allegations as “preposterous,” insisting the roughly 50 articles at issue were based on lawful sources including friends, royal aides and publicists who offered information to reporters.
The verdict coincides with Harry's visit home to the UK, but the court case has been overshadowed by the question of whether he will bring his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, for a rare visit to their grandfather, King Charles III
.
Harry’s long criticised the news business
Harry's self-proclaimed mission to reform the press for creating what he called a toxic environment is much deeper than headlines that documented his party boy youth and romantic ups and downs. His emotional testimony in February drove that point home.
The prince has blamed the press for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash in 1997 while being pursued by paparazzi in Paris, and for attacks on his wife that led the couple to leave royal life and move to the United States in 2020.
“They continue to come after me, they have made my wife's life an absolute misery,” he said as he choked back tears in the witness box.
The phone hacking scandal that began in the 1990s and continued for more than a decade gave Harry the opportunity to break with royal family tradition and take his case to court. Three years ago, he became the first senior royal to testify in court in over a century.
Harry won a judgment in 2023 that condemned the publishers of the Daily Mirror for “widespread and habitual” phone hacking. Last year, Rupert Murdoch's flagship UK tabloid, The Sun, made an unprecedented apology for intruding on his life for years, and agreed to pay substantial damages to settle his privacy invasion lawsuit.
The case against the Daily Mail
Attorney David Sherborne said the Daily Mail and its sister publication, Mail on Sunday, used its journalists, freelance reporters and private eyes for “clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information gathering” to snoop on his clients.
He connected payments to detectives with dates of articles in question to try to show, for example, how journalists tracked down information about Harry's then-girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, and her travel plans.
Harry testified at the start of the trial in January that press intrusions left him “paranoid beyond belief,” strained his relationships and took a toll on his mental health.
Hurley accused the Mail of putting microphones outside her windows and stealing her medical records among “other monstrous, staggering things.”
“It is like there is someone peeping into your life and into your home,” the model and actor testified. “My private life had been violated by violent intruders — that there had been sinister thieves in my home all along and that I had been living with them completely unaware.”
Other claimants in the case are anti-racism activist Doreen Lawrence, former politician Simon Hughes and John's husband, David Furnish.
Journalists were lining up' to testify in defense
Defense lawyer Antony White said the case relied on conjecture and inferences when the more likely source of information was “ordinary, legitimate journalism.”
White said Harry was “inclined to see unlawful evidence gathering, in particular voicemail interception, everywhere,” despite a lack of evidence.
The Mail trial has played out differently than the Mirror case, with White saying that journalists were “lining up” to defend their work in court. Some reporters pointed to official mouthpieces, such as a palace spokesperson, and others named their sources to dispute Harry's assertion that his “social circles were not leaky.”
“They were not all tight-lipped,” Katie Nicholl, a former Mail on Sunday editor, said about Harry's associates. “I had very good sources in the inner circle.”