Prince Harry, Elton John appear in court hearing against Daily Mail publisher
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Prince Harry and Elton John are among seven claimants to launch a lawsuit against Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail.
PHOTOS: REUTERS
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LONDON - Britain’s Prince Harry and singer Elton John made a surprise appearance at London’s High Court on Monday, as they and five others began a lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail paper over years of alleged phone-tapping and privacy breaches.
Prince Harry, the younger son of King Charles III, has brought a lawsuit against Associated Newspapers alongside other famous figures, including John, his husband and filmmaker David Furnish, and actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost.
Prince Harry, who flew from his California home, sat just a metre away from a large group of reporters, watching intently and occasionally taking notes.
His spokesman said he had wanted to be there to show his support, and that he might attend for much of the four-day preliminary hearing.
The seven claimants launched the action in 2022, but legal restrictions requested by the newspaper group mean specific details of their allegations have not so far been made public.
According to a statement released in October 2022 by lawyers for Frost and Prince Harry, the case against Associated Newspapers includes accusations of bugging people’s calls, cars and homes, and paying police for sensitive information.
The alleged activity ran from 1993 to 2011, “even continuing beyond until 2018”, the lawyers said.
In Prince Harry’s written case, quoted by Associated Newspapers’ lawyers in court filings, he said the publication of articles about him caused “suspicion and paranoia... Friends were lost or cut off as a result and everyone became a ‘suspect’”.
Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and the Mail Online, has said it “utterly and unambiguously” denies the allegations.
It is seeking, during four days of hearings this week at London’s High Court, to have the case thrown out.
Prince Harry is already suing the Mail on Sunday for libel over an article about his security arrangements, and in 2022 won damages from the same paper after another defamation claim.
His wife Meghan also won a privacy case against the publisher in 2021 for printing a letter she had written to her estranged father.
Meanwhile, Prince Harry is expected to appear in court in May to give evidence in a libel trial against the Daily Mirror newspaper over accusations of phone-hacking.
Media intrusion was one of the reasons Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, cited for stepping back from royal duties
They fiercely attacked the press in their recent six-part Netflix documentary series Harry’s memoir, Spare.
Media intrusion was one of the reasons cited by Prince Harry and wife Meghan for moving to California to forge new lives and careers.
PHOTO: REUTERS
However, possibly the most notable claimant in the case is Ms Doreen Lawrence, the mother of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered in a 1993 racist attack.
She was later made a baroness for her campaigning work.
The Mail had championed bringing her son’s killers to justice and said the allegations involving her were “appalling and utterly groundless smears”.
In a statement issued in October 2022, a spokesman for Associated Newspapers said the publisher had “the greatest respect and admiration” for Ms Lawrence and was saddened that she had been persuaded to join the action by “whoever is cynically and unscrupulously orchestrating these claims”. REUTERS
