Prince Harry, Elton John in court for privacy suit against British tabloid

It is not an exaggeration to say that the bubble burst in terms of what I knew in 2020 when I moved out of the United Kingdom,” he said, via Sky News. Harry claims that the newspaper libeled him when it suggested that the prince lied in his initial public statements about the suit against the government. Allies of Britain’s royal family are pushing back against claims made by Prince Harry in his new memoir. Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, have been asked to vacate their home in Britain, suggesting a further fraying of ties with the royal family amid preparations for the coronation of his father, King Charles III.
He is also suing ANL after its Mail on Sunday newspaper published a story about his separate legal proceedings against the UK’s Home Office over his family’s security arrangements when visiting Britain. The publisher has rejected the allegations as “preposterous smears” and labeled the lawsuit as a “pre-planned and orchestrated attempt to drag the Mail titles into the phone-hacking scandal,” according to PA Media. “The claimants each claim that in different ways they were the victim of numerous unlawful acts carried out by the defendant, or by those acting on the instructions of its newspapers, the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday,” David Sherborne, head lawyer for the group, said. Evidence at the centre of breach of privacy claims against the publisher of the Daily Mail is centred on an alleged confession and denial by a private investigator over his role in unlawful information gathering. The Duke of Sussex, 38, is one of several high-profile stars suing the publisher behind sites such as Daily Mail, Mail Online and the Mail on Sunday over the alleged unlawful gathering of information, including invasion of privacy and phone-tapping.

The case is to some extent a replay of a British phone-hacking scandal that was front page news a decade ago and eventually brought down another tabloid and ended with the conviction of the former spokesperson for then-Prime Minister David Cameron. In addition to being accused of hacking phone calls, the lawsuit suggests that the company claimed to have obtained information from anonymous sources to hide behind the real source of information. The media company's defense is not simply that the claims are false, but also that the  claims are old and that much of the information against them had already been confidentially disclosed in a 2012 case regarding media lawbreaking. Meghan Markle Scores a Legal Victory Against Her Half Sister SamanthaThis week, a judge in Florida dismissed a lawsuit Samantha filed over the book Finding Freedom and statements Meghan made to Oprah in March 2021. The pair cited media harassment and mistreatment as a major reason why they chose to leave the royal family after two years of marriage. Prince Harry, who lives in Montecito, California, with his wife, Meghan, and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, arrived at court on Monday as legal proceedings in the privacy case began, as reported by the Times.
The Duke of Sussex sued the publisher in February over an article in the Mail on Sunday newspaper which alleged he tried to keep secret details of his legal fight with Britain's interior ministry to reinstate his police protection. Prince Harry and Elton John were in a London court Monday as the lawyer for a group of British tabloids prepared to ask a judge to toss the lawsuit they brought with several other high-profile people who allege phone-tapping and other invasions of privacy. Prince Harry lawsuit against newspaper publisher set for May trial Britain’s Prince Harry’s lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mirror newspaper over allegations of phone hacking will go to trial in May, a ... The attorney said in the statement that the private security team that the Sussexes pay for in the United States "cannot replicate the necessary police protection needed" in the U.K. The lawyer added, "In the absence of such protection, Prince Harry and his family are unable to return to his home." There will be a high court hearing to review the duke's plea for police protection, the July 22 filing states.

"These unsubstantiated and highly defamatory claims -- based on no credible evidence -- appear to be simply a fishing expedition by claimants and their lawyers, some of whom have already pursued cases elsewhere," the publisher said in its statement. Prince Harryreturned to a London court Tuesday for a second day of hearings to see if the phone hacking lawsuit he brought with Elton John and other celebrities can withstand a challenge from the publisher of The Daily Mail. The publisher denies the allegations and said the claims are too old to be brought and information about the phone hacking scandal was so widely known the subjects could have sued years ago. The accusers allege they were victims of “numerous unlawful acts” carried out by the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, including phone hacking and “even commissioning the breaking and entry into private property,” according to extracts of submissions made to the court.
In statement issued this past January, Harry's legal representative said that the duke "inherited a security risk at birth, for life" and that in recent years, "his family has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats." According to the filing, the Home Office maintained that Harry's offer to privately pay for police security was "irrelevant," adding that "personal protective security by the police is not available on a privately financed basis." A High Court judge wrote in an approved judgement, filed July 22 and obtained by E!
Harry brought the ongoing privacy lawsuit against Mail publishers in October 2022 with a collective of high-profile British co-claimants. These include Sir Elton John, Baroness Doreen Lawrence and the actress Elizabeth Hurley. When he arrived at the court's main entrance on Monday, Harry was met by a group of media members and photographers covering his lawsuit. This resulted in the royal bumping into one photographer as he tried to make his way to the door.

The Duke of Sussex is one of several public figures whose lawsuits against Mirror Group Newspapers will be considered at the trial. Brooks is a former editor of The Sun and the News of the World, and resigned as CEO of News International in 2011 at the height of the phone hacking scandal, before being re-installed as CEO of News UK in 2015. The source said they did not have detailed knowledge of the complaint lodged by Harry and were basing their speculation on previous legal actions by other claimants. He denied phone hacking at the Leveson Inquiry into the ethics of news-gathering in the British press. According to court documents, legal representatives for the Home Office said in a written statement that personal tensions between Harry and royal officials are "irrelevant" to his change in status after his step back from royal duties.
Get the Robb Report newsletter for similar stories delivered straight to your inbox. Photos from Harry leaving the High Court in London show the former royal’s jacket blown open enough that you can see a bee logo on his white collared shirt, identifying it as Dior. The Dior bee shirt is a cotton poplin dress shirt with a bee embroidered in 18-carat gold thread, finished with mother-of-pearl Dior signature buttons and a shirt-tail hem, available on the Dior website for $1,000. It’s also a perfect symbol of Harry’s new laid-back approach to fashion since moving to California.
Harry, the Duke of Sussex, is one of several public figures whose lawsuits against Mirror Group Newspapers will be considered at a trial due to begin in May. Harry is fighting back against a 2020 decision by the government that denied his family police protection while in Britain after he and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, stepped down from roles as senior working roles. Since quitting their royal duties, Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and their family are no longer entitled to armed protection while in the UK. In an attempt to overturn this decision from February 2020, Harry has been pursuing a court case against the Home Office.