Next week, Prince Harry will give testimony in his case against a media group he claims engaged in illegal behavior, making him the first senior British royal to do so in 130 years.
In connection with the lawsuit he and more than 100 other well-known individuals have filed against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), the company that publishes the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, and Sunday People, Harry, the younger son of King Charles, will testify in court in London.
Since Edward VII testified as a witness in a divorce case in part in 1870 in a slander trial involving a card game 20 years later, both of which occurred before he became king, no senior royal has testified in court.
Considering his legal disputes with the British press, the publication of his biography, and the Netflix documentary series in which he accused other senior royals of working with tabloid publications, Harry, who is fifth in line to the throne, has hardly been out of the spotlight over the past six months.
His court appearance is sure to garner notice on a global scale.
Harry is also suing Rupert Murdoch’s Sun tabloid newspaper, which David Yelland, a senior communications adviser, formerly edited. He claimed that the royal family had long sought to avoid legal disputes since they were powerless to influence the situation.
These situations frequently involve mutually assured destruction. Nobody will come out looking spectacular, in my opinion,” he remarked.
Harry and three others were chosen as test cases in the lawsuit filed by more than 100 people against MGN.
The trial, which started last month, has been informed that MGN journalists or private investigators hired by them engaged in “industrial-scale” phone hacking and other illegal activities to learn more about the prince and the other claimants.
Senior editors and executives knew about and approved of this, according to the claimants’ attorney David Sherborne. Senior figures, according to MGN, who is disputing the charges, denied knowing anything about hacking and had any misconduct kept from them.
INTERVIEW PEAK
One among individuals who knew about the hacking, according to a journalist and Harry biographer who testified in court, was former editor Piers Morgan, who is now one of Britain’s most prominent broadcasters and a vocal opponent of the prince and his wife Meghan.
After making controversial comments about Meghan, Morgan, who has denied any involvement in illegal behavior and accused Harry of violating the privacy of his own family, lost his job as a presenter on a TV breakfast show.
It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that he is taking advantage of the legal system since he is confident he will be taken seriously as a witness, according to Yelland. To be cross-examined by a hostile barrister while testifying is the ultimate interview.
In court records at the beginning of the trial, MGN, which is now owned by Reach, expressed regret and acknowledged that the Sunday People had once improperly obtained information about Harry and that he was due compensation.
However, it disproved his other claims, claiming he lacked support for them. Instead, with MGN suggesting that some material had come from royal aides, Buckingham Palace is likely to be a major topic of Harry’s cross-examination.
According to MGN’s records, Morgan and Harry’s father’s former deputy private secretary had “regular meals and drinking sessions together” when one report concerning Harry first surfaced.
In order to protect or improve their personal reputations, Harry has claimed that his family and their assistants participated in the release of damaging information. The palace has made no remarks.
Harry will be at the High Court in London this week for the second time this year. In March, he appeared alongside musician Elton John and others for hearings regarding their lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily and Sunday Mail tabloids.
