Harry’s war with the press is back in court. But this time is different

It may seem like we’re back in familiar territory – the Duke of Sussex is about to file a claim in a London court alleging that newspapers used illegal methods to gather information.

But in many ways, Prince Harry seems to be in a different place in his life. He now seems to be more focused on reconciling with his family than the accusations.

When the case against the publisher of the Daily Mail begins on Monday, Prince Harry will vigorously fight his corner against the press, although he no longer appears to be fighting the rest of the world.

It is Prince Harry’s third major court battle, accusing newspaper groups of wrongdoing by appearing as a witness in a civil case against Associated Newspapers alongside other claimants, including Sir Elton John, Liz Hurley and Baroness Lawrence, the mother of murdered Stephen Lawrence.

The Daily Mail’s publishers have dismissed the allegations as “baseless” and are preparing a strong defense of their journalism.

But Prince Harry’s background feels different from when he gave evidence against the Mirror Group in 2023. That followed his no-holds-barred memoir Spare and the Harry and Meghan Netflix documentary a year full of controversial views on the royal family.

His successful court battle against the Mirror was big news in itself, as the biggest royal presence in the witness box in modern times.

He had no problem with the questions, but he cut an isolated figure, with no company in court except his legal team and security.

But, before his latest court case, Mood Music feels different: He’s now building bridges instead of blowing them up.

In his BBC interview last May, Prince Harry spoke about wanting to end the rift with his family, saying: “There’s no point in fighting anymore, life is precious.”

And in September, she met her father, King Charles, together for the first time in 19 months. This was a sign of improved relations.

There will also be a review of his security while in the UK, which could solve another obstacle to Harry’s visit. Next year will bring his Invictus Games to Birmingham, his biggest event in the UK since his acrimonious departure in 2020.

Alongside this sense of growing connection with his family is the unspoken expectation that Harry will keep his head down for a while, avoid bombshell interviews, and not rock the royal boat.

So he will not meet his father in this court case, the king wants to avoid such high-profile legal proceedings. And her brother Prince William is engaged in Scotland.

Royal commentator Richard Palmer describes it as “Harry’s last gasp in the national newspapers for ruining his life”.

“His father and the royal family would obviously prefer not to go ahead with this trial and distance themselves. They will hope that Harry does not try to drag the king or other members of the family into evidence.

“If he says the wrong thing it could hurt his hopes of reconciliation so I’m sure that will weigh on his mind.”

But he adds: “It’s interesting that, as far as we know, he doesn’t plan to do any interviews to publicize the issue. He’s in a different place now, not as angry and not as eager to try to mend fences with his family.”

Royal commentator Pro Pauline McLaren also thinks Harry is likely to keep a low profile “given his desire to rebuild bridges, certainly with his father and reports he expects him to be at the opening of the Invictus Games”.

“He may have learned that less is more where the Royal Family is concerned.

“So he will still pursue his case against the Associated Press, I think he will stay out of the limelight,” she adds.

Monday’s case could be his last court campaign against the documents, but Prince Harry must know it won’t be his easiest.

Unlike other newspaper groups, The Mail and Mail on Sunday were never embroiled in phone-hacking scandals, or investigations into illegal payments to public officials, more than a decade ago.

The Mail’s editor, Paul Dacre, told the Leveson Inquiry into press standards in 2012 that he had carried out a “major internal investigation” and was “confident” that there had been no phone hacking by his newspapers.

Yes, his reporters used private investigators with databases to legally obtain phone numbers, so they didn’t have to dig through phone books. That ended, he told the inquest, when an investigator admitted a breach of data protection.

Fast forward to October 2022 and, out of the blue, six very famous people accused The Associated Press of not only accessing their voicemail messages and using private investigators to “blag” their personal information, but also wiretapping phones and invasive surveillance techniques.

To cap it all, one of them was Baroness Doreen Lawrence. In the 1990s, The Mail strongly supported the campaign to bring her son Stephen’s killers to justice.

Now, he claims that a senior reporter had engaged investigators with phone-tapping and bugging to obtain information for the stories.

It was a bombshell in a long history of accusations against the press.

In this trial, the claimants – Baroness Lawrence, Prince Harry, actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost Law, Sir Elton John, her husband David Furnish, and former Liberal Democrat minister Sir Simon Hughes, who joined the action at a later stage – must prove that their privacy has been breached.

The first challenge: There’s a six-year time limit for claiming a privacy violation, starting when it happened, and some allegations go back decades. To get around this rule, they have to show that they didn’t know they had a possible case recently.

The Associated alleges that to achieve this, friendly journalists published articles on fringe news websites to create artificial “burning moments” when it could be claimed that victims “discovered” the truth about what the paper had done. The other side vehemently denies it. The judge will decide.

Some of the evidence they hope to use comes from the private investigators themselves. Some information is paid for. In civil courts it is not a breach of contract, but the judge will have to consider whether it harms the credibility of their evidence.

There are also dramatic behind-the-scenes rows between investigators working for the claimants and private investigators they hope will turn into star witnesses.

One, Gavin Burroughs, appeared to sign a lengthy statement detailing what he knew about the use of illegal methods, but later claimed his signature was forged. He is expected to give evidence.

Prince Harry’s legal team had hoped to prove a general claim that illegal practices were “widespread or habitual” at Associated Newspapers, in part because reporters had joined from other publications where it was routine and were using the same private investigators.

After all, what was the likelihood that the competing Mail and Mail on Sunday were not using illegal techniques to obtain information that were widely practiced by the Sun, The News of the World, The Mirror and The Sunday Mirror?

But the no-nonsense judge presiding over these often ill-tempered proceedings is desperate to prevent them from turning into “public inquiries”. Last year, he decided not to accept these “outlandish” claims.

In short, the Big Seven have to make their case by making accusations. Team Harry begins this test with one hand tied behind his back.

Unless the news group can reach a settlement, similar to the case against the newspapers, Prince Harry will pursue his claim in the High Court against what he sees as unfair and unscrupulous excesses of press intrusion. It is a cause that is close to his heart.

Once the case is over, sources close to Harry suggest his priority will be to support his charitable causes and there are currently no court cases against the media in the pipeline.

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