Prince Harry won a crucial stage in a lawsuit he is bringing against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail, Friday, setting up the prospect of a blockbuster trial starring the prince next year.
Harry, together with several other plaintiffs, including Elton John, David Furnish and Liz Hurley were told they can continue with High Court action against the newspaper publisher which they accuse of unlawful information gathering, including hiring private investigators to bug their cars and hack their phone conversations.
ANL denies the allegations, and at a preliminary hearing in March, at which Prince Harry made a surprise appearance as an observer, ANL asked a judge to throw the case out, saying legal challenges had been lodged “far too late,” a tactic known as a “limitation defense.”
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However in a written judgement Friday morning, the judge dismissed ANL’s claim, saying the claimants had a “real prospect of succeeding” and that it would be more appropriate to “resolve any limitation defense... at a trial, after consideration of all the relevant evidence.”
The judge added that ANL had failed to deliver a “knockout blow” to the claims made against them.
A key plank of Harry’s case is an alleged confession by a private investigator Gavin Burrows, but ANL say that he later contradicted his confession and said he was not commissioned by ANL newspapers to conduct unlawful information gathering.
ANL were successful, however, in arguing that Harry and the other claimants should not be able to use some material that was supplied to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards in 2012 that followed the revelation of widespread phone hacking.
That material was handed over to the inquiry under an effective amnesty and although some of it made its way into the public domain, the judge said it still could not be used in a court of law, and that “the court could not permit the claimants to use information derived from the ledgers in their claim.”
The ruling was the latest victory for Harry and Meghan in their ongoing war with the British tabloids, which they accuse of invading their privacy.
In 2021, Meghan won a separate case against Associated Newspapers which unlawfully published a private letter she had written to her estranged father.
Then, in June this year, Harry took the stand in another phone hacking case alleging that Mirror Group Newspapers, publishers of British tabloids, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, and the People, used illegal methods to publish a string of stories about him. Harry said the newspaper group’s tactics led to “a huge amount of paranoia” in his relationships and that he found it “very hard to trust anyone, which led to bouts of depression and paranoia.”
A verdict in that case is expected before Christmas.
Harry also has another action ongoing against the Daily Mail alleging that a story about his security arrangements was libelous.
He is also likely to be a star witness next year in a huge case against the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Group Newspapers, alleging the Sun published unlawfully-obtained stories about him.
Additionally, he is in a legal dispute with the British government which he says has unfairly denied him automatic police protection when visiting Britain.
