By Michael Holden and Sam Tobin
LONDON, Jan 20 (Reuters) – Prince Harry suffered a sustained campaign of attacks for standing up to Britain’s powerful Daily Mail over intrusion into his private life, his lawyer told a court on Tuesday where he and others are suing the paper’s publisher.
The Duke of Sussex, 41, and six other claimants including singer Elton John are suing the Mail’s publisher Associated Newspapers at the High Court for violations of their privacy over more than two decades from the early 1990s.
The claims include hacking voicemail messages, bugging landlines and obtaining private information by deception, known as “blagging”.
Associated calls the allegations smears, saying their journalists had legitimate sources for information, including the celebrities’ gossipy social circles.
‘NO ONE SOLD MORE COPIES’ THAN HARRY
Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne said that “no one sold more copies” for Britain’s tabloids than Harry, noting huge press interest in the royals, particularly exclusives about the prince’s private life.
The stories focused “in a highly intrusive and damaging way on the relationships which he formed, or rather tried to form, during those years prior to meeting his now wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex”, Sherborne added.
Fourteen articles in question included stories that Harry was to be asked to be godfather to his former nanny’s child, details about travel plans and intimate personal information involving his former girlfriend Chelsy Davy, Sherborne said.
That caused “distress and paranoia” for Harry, the lawyer said as the prince watched in court.
“Given what we’ve seen, is it any wonder that he feels that way or, as he explains, that he feels he has endured a sustained campaign of attacks against him for having had the temerity to stand up to Associated?” Sherborne said.
PERSONAL CRUSADE
Harry’s latest case against the media is part of a personal mission for the prince, who as a boy lost his mother Diana in a 1997 car crash during a pursuit by paparazzi.
His partying habits, girlfriends prior to marrying, fractious family relations, and departure to live in the U.S., have long been a staple of British media.
Associated says the stories about Harry originated from contacts, press officers or other legitimate sources.
“The claims are without any foundation,” Associated said in its written submission, adding they were based on spurious or discredited information from private investigators.
Over nine weeks, Harry, John and the other claimants – John’s husband David Furnish, actors Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, anti-racism campaigner Doreen Lawrence and ex-lawmaker Simon Hughes – will give evidence about how they believe investigators routinely obtained material unlawfully on behalf of journalists.
Detailing John’s case, Sherborne said that for a 2010 article about the singer and his husband David Furnish having a child through surrogacy in the U.S., the Mail had “obtained a copy of their son’s birth certificate before they did”.
Associated denies the information was unlawfully obtained.
Harry is due to give evidence in person on Thursday, having become the first British royal to appear in a witness box in 130 years in 2023 during his lawsuit against another tabloid group.
(Reporting by Michael Holden and Sam Tobin; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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