Prince Harry Sues British Press

The Duke of Sussex explained that he began taking legal action against several media groups in 2019, after his wife, Meghan Markle—with whom he now lives in the United States—also took action against ANL for publishing a confidential letter he had sent to his father. Prince Harry stated this Wednesday at London's High Court that the rules of the British monarchy prevented him from suing the country's tabloid press sooner for the illegal intrusion into his private life. At one point during the hearing, the judge explained to Harry that it was not his role to rebut each of the opposing lawyer's claims—that would be done later by his own lawyer—but simply to answer the questions. According to the duke, the type of information that appeared in the articles “were not things he would have discussed with any friend,” and he gave as examples conversations with his brother William about their late mother, Princess Diana, plans to meet with Chelsy Davy, or the proposal from his former nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, to be godfather to his son. “As a member of the institution, the policy was ‘never complain, never explain’,” he affirmed while testifying in his lawsuit against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the ‘Daily Mail’ and ‘Mail on Sunday’, which he accuses of causing him serious harm by illegally obtaining personal data. Testifying before Judge Matthew Nicklin, Harry today denied the claim by ANL's lawyer, Antony White, that his social circle was “porous” and intentionally provided information to journalists Rebecca English and Katie Nicholl, authors of most of the disputed articles. In the current trial, which began last Monday, Harry accuses Associated of using “illegal techniques” to access information, such as voicemail hacking, landline interception, “blagging” or data extraction by deception, physical eavesdropping, and obtaining telephone bills and flight details of his then-girlfriend, Chelsy Davy. Previously, without raising his voice and politely, the prince had questioned the validity of each of the arguments presented on behalf of the two journalists, such as their claim that they managed to integrate into the royal environment. In the duke's case, this nine-week process will examine 14 articles written mainly by English and Nicholl between 2001 and 2013. Before the trial against Associated Newspapers, Prince Harry had already won other cases involving phone hacking and illegal information gathering against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) and News Group Newspapers, publisher of ‘The Sun’ and the defunct ‘News of the World’. In addition to King Charles III's youngest son, other plaintiffs against the media group include singer Elton John and his husband David Furnish, actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, Doreen Lawrence—mother of the young black man Stephen Lawrence, murdered in 1993 in a racist attack—and former Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes.