LONDON—Prince Harry will be the first high-ranking British royal to testify in court in over a century when he appears before a judge in London on Tuesday to accuse journalists at Mirror Group Newspapers of hacking his cellphone to get exclusives. This is the latest attack by the disgruntled duke against Britain’s tabloid newspapers.
The Duke of Sussex is one of more than 100 plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which also includes celebrities and ex-soccer players, who allege that MGN journalists illegally accessed voicemails and hired private investigators between 1991 and 2011 to generate exclusives, with the knowledge of senior executives and editors at Mirror Group tabloids.
Reach PLC, the current owners of MGN, has confessed in the past to phone hacking and settled hundreds of cases out of court. At the beginning of the trial in May, the newspaper apologized to Prince Harry for a 2004 incident in which one of its journalists engaged a private investigator to illegally gather information about the prince during a visit to a nightclub, a case that is unrelated to this lawsuit.
However, the media organization has refuted hacking his phone. It has also contested the scope of some of the lawsuit’s claims and claimed that others were brought to trial too late. In a statement, the organization stated that it “will vigorously defend against allegations of wrongdoing where our journalists have acted lawfully.”
During an earlier hearing, the court selected four of the individual cases — Prince Harry, two soap opera actors, and the ex-wife of a comedian — as representative test cases to examine the claims in greater detail. The duration of the trial is approximately six weeks.
The Duke of Sussex, fifth in line to the succession, has waged a long-running battle against British tabloids and their reporting methods, which he blames for the death of his mother following a paparazzi chase in Paris. He also claims that the media played a significant role in his decision to renounce his royal duties in 2020 and relocate to California.
Prince Harry is pursuing three separate legal cases against various publishers in British courts. This includes a lawsuit against News Group Newspapers, which is owned by News Corp and also publishes The Wall Street Journal, for multiple alleged illegal acts committed on behalf of its tabloids The Sun and the defunct News of the World. NGN denies the allegations and asserts that the alleged actions occurred too long ago for a court to consider them.
If the court rules in favor of the prince, particularly if it concludes that senior executives at MGN were complicit in ordering the phone tapping, it would be a significant victory for the prince’s campaign against paparazzi intrusion and could cost the tabloid group dearly.
Prince Harry has frequently discussed the royal family’s relationship with the British media, most recently in an autobiography and a Netflix series. He has accused other senior royals of prioritizing their relationships with the tabloids over their efforts to reform the system. Buckingham Palace has not responded to any of his claims.
Since relinquishing his royal duties, Prince Harry has told his side of the story to mostly sympathetic interviewers, such as Oprah Winfrey. This will be the first time he confronts a likely hostile attorney cross-examination. The British public will devote close attention to this event.
In 1891, the then-heir to the throne was the most recent British royal to testify before a high court. Prince Edward was summoned to testify in response to allegations that William Gordon-Cumming cheated at baccarat during a house party they both attended. Gordon-Cumming was subsequently excluded from British high society after being proven guilty.
The effects of the paparazzi on Prince Harry’s life have been extensively documented in his writings. His book “Spare” details how he had to convey to his then-girlfriend Chelsy Davy that press intrusion should be treated as “a chronic illness.” In the context of this relationship, he later fears that the press will “cost me another person I cared about.”
Later, while dating his future wife Meghan Markle, the prince took the unusual step of requesting that the palace issue a statement criticizing media coverage of her. After their wedding, the couple relocated to Montecito, California, to launch a media company, ostensibly to escape the paparazzi. Recently, after an event in New York, they reported being pursued by photographers in a “nearly catastrophic car chase.” Others on the site minimized the events.
Prince Harry asserts that 140 newspaper articles published by MGN titles resulted from unlawful newsgathering. On Monday, his attorneys cited headlines such as “Rugger Off Harry,” which described how the young prince was prevented from playing rugby at school due to a back injury, essentially disclosing what appeared to be private medical information about the prince.
Beginning in the early 2000s, several scandals involving illegal behavior by British tabloids to obtain information for stories, such as employing private investigators, hacking phones, and bribing police, emerged.
MGN acknowledged in 2014 that it had hacked the phones of several subjects it had written about. In a recent interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation, Piers Morgan, who was editor of the Daily Mirror from 1995 to 2004, denied ever hacking a phone or instructing anyone to do so.
MGN has received 831 phone-hacking claims since 2012, of which 604 have been resolved, the company reports.
The courtroom drama has kept Prince Harry in the news and served as a conduit for further royal family revelations. Prince Harry claimed in a recent court filing that his older brother, Prince William, settled a phone-hacking claim against News Group Newspapers for a “very large sum” in 2020.
The Buckingham Palace refused comment. NGN denied that such a settlement occurred.
