Prince Harry, though no longer addressed as His Royal Highness, has yet again stepped into the limelight with a case that claims that journalists hacked his phone. His claims are targeted against three Mirror titles – The Daily Mirror, The Sunday Mirror, and People – all of whom denied all claims, as well as Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers.
The publishers have argued that the complaints should be disregarded altogether as they fall outside of the six-year time limit, whereas the lawyers representing Harry and other claimants said that they should be granted an exception “because the publishers lied and concealed evidence that prevented them from learning of the covert acts in time to meet the deadlines.”
Prince Harry is known for setting new precedents for royals, and this case is not an exception. In over a century, no British royal has ventured where Prince Harry will soon be standing: a courtroom witness stand. The Duke of Sussex is readying himself to testify in “the first of his five pending legal cases largely centered around battles with British tabloids.” Prince Harry’s case is said to be influenced by his late mother Princess Diana’s death. The prince pins the cause of his mother’s car crash on the paparazzi who chased her.
Prince Harry also cites “harassment and intrusion by the British Press and “vicious, persistent attacks” on his wife, Meghan, including racist articles, as the reason the couple left royal life and fled to the U.S. in 2020.” News about British journalists hacking phones first spread in 2006 and a private investigator and reporter were arrested as a consequence. Another scandal ruptured just five years after when News of the World “eavesdropped on voicemails on the phone of a slain girl” which inevitably spelled the end of the newspaper and launched a public inquiry.
All in all, Prince Harry’s case against the paparazzi has been years in the making and he is not alone in his complaints. Hugh Grant, Elton John, and Elizabeth Hurley all plan on expressing their complaints against some of the newspapers. The case is broken into two main components: first, is the “generic case” which consisted of Prince Harry laying out all the evidence he compiled against the news outlet and the second, will begin on Monday and consist of the other four claimants testifying as well.