ROYAL FAMILY
Prince Harry skips third day of court proceedings
The hearings for the privacy invasion lawsuit against the Daily Mail will continue through Thursday.
Prince Harry traveled from California to the UK to attend court proceedings in his case against Daily Mail publishers, Associated Newspapers Ltd., only to skip the third day of hearings.
The case, filed in October 2022 alongside seven other claimants, alleges that the Daily Mail affiliated publishers illegally breached privacy boundaries through methods such as phone hacking, hiring private investigators, and paying police for information.
Associated Newspapers Ltd. is arguing for the case to be dismissed.
The judge will hear arguments from both sides over the course of four days, and then rule whether the case should go to trial.
The prince a no-show on third day in court
The 38-year-old prince went to the London Royal Courts of Justice on Monday and Tuesday, but on Wednesday he did not go.
The prince joins claimants British actress Elizabeth Hurley, legendary musician Elton John and his partner David Furnish, Jude Law’s ex-wife Sadie Frost, activist Baroness Doreen Lawrence, and Liberal politician Sir Simon Hughes.
The Duke of Sussex’s witness statement was read in court Wednesday, where the prince mentioned the Mail making derogatory headlines about Meghan Markle, his wife, as well as alleges that the royal family “without a doubt” knew about the illegal phone hacking and withheld that information from him.
Prince Harry’s witness statement
According to the court documents, Prince Harry thought no one would be so bold as to hack his phone.
“[I thought] no one would be so stupid as to hack my own phone given the security implications and consequences of my private information and whereabouts ending up in the wrong hands,” the prince’s statement read.
The documents state that Harry only recently realized a claim against Associated Newspapers held water, when two private investigators admitted their role in the alleged illegal activity.
New evidence comes to light
In a new development, Harry’s lawyers said the investigators confessed they executed “unlawful acts against him on the instruction of the Defendant’s newspapers.”
This new information is contrary to what the lawyers said earlier in the hearings. Prior to this statement, Prince Harry’s witness statement said there was no evidence.
“No one had ever mentioned any evidence, or even suggested the possibility of guilt, in relation to unlawful information gathering by Associated,” the witness statement read. “Before this point, whenever I considered Associated, I never thought about this.”
“I did however think about all the other things I associated the Mail with, such as the harm caused to individuals and families up and down the country and all the false stories they would pump out about [my wife] Meghan,” Prince Harry’s statement continued.