As lawsuit against tabloid begins, royals prepare to cringe

Prince Harry is ready to testify in hacking case

Prince Harry’s bitter, yearslong feud with Britain’s tabloid press will come to a head this week. He is scheduled to take the stand Tuesday in a London courtroom for a lawsuit against the Mirror newspaper group on charges that it hacked his cellphone more than a decade ago.

For the younger son of King Charles III to appear 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 is not one his family is likely to relish.

Harry, who is also known as the Duke of Sussex, could face embarrassing questions about his personal life before he met his wife, Meghan, as well as about his relationships with other members of the royal family. Since he and Meghan withdrew from royal duties in 2020 and left Britain for Southern California, Harry has become estranged from his father, Charles, and his elder brother, Prince William.

Members of the royal family have preferred to settle legal claims rather than undergo the scrutiny of a courtroom. William settled a phone-hacking case against Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper group, the News Group, for a “huge sum of money” in 2020, Harry claimed in a legal filing in a separate case earlier this year.

So far, Harry has brushed aside any chances to settle, turning his campaign against the tabloid press into one of the animating causes of his life. He has said he holds the tabloids responsible for the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash in 1997 after she was pursued by photographers.

Lawyers for Harry began laying out his case against Mirror Group Newspapers on Monday morning, detailing what they said were the unlawful means used by the media giant to gather information on him and write a series of stories that were prominently featured in tabloids from 1996 to 2011.

They said the newspaper group used private investigators who were paid by the organization to illegally gather information, took part in voice mail interception, and employed photographers who used unlawful means to find out the whereabouts of Harry and his associates, among other violations. As part of their evidence, Harry’s legal team laid out dozens of news articles that they say relied on illegally sourced information.

“Every facet of his life was splashed across the paper as an exclusive, a story too good not to publish,” said David Sherborne, a lawyer for Harry.

Sherborne spoke of a person hounded by the press from the time he was a young boy at school, through the traumatic death of his mother, through his time in the military. Throughout this time, his lawyers said, unlawful information gathering was used against him repeatedly by the Mirror Group.

Lawyers for the Mirror Group contend that Harry and the other three plaintiffs waited too long to sue for acts that took place between 1991 and 2011. The Mirror admitted in 2014 that it engaged in phone hacking, and the following February it published a front-page apology to victims of the practice.

Andrew Green, the lead lawyer for the Mirror Group, argued in court on Monday “that there is simply no evidence that the Duke of Sussex was ever hacked” and asserted that there had not been any details provided in an earlier case against the Mirror that he was ever successfully hacked.

Harry had been expected to be in the High Court in London on Monday as his lawyers laid out his case, but his legal team told the court that he would not appear until a day later.

That drew a slight rebuke from the judge, Timothy Fancourt, who chastised Harry’s legal team for the prince’s failure to appear. Green, the defense lawyer, expressed concern that he may not have the day and a half he said he needed to crossexamine the royal. But members of Harry’s legal team said that they would ensure the defense had the time requested.

In addition to the Mirror Group, Harry has filed lawsuits against the News Group, which publishes The Sun and The Times, and against the publisher of The Daily Mail.

He is also suing Britain’s Home Office for removing his police protection after he and Meghan withdrew from their duties.