Prince Harry will make another unprecedented move for a senior royal this week as he gives evidence in a phone-hacking court case against Mirror Group Newspapers, the owner of the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People. The lawsuit alleges that the company unlawfully gathered information on the prince between 1996 and 2011 that was published in its papers, and that senior executives and editors were aware of this activity. This lawsuit is one of three entirely separate but concurrent phone-hacking claims that Prince Harry is making: the other two are against Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, and the Mail newspapers.
While he is one of the most high-profile players in the lawsuit, Harry is not the only claimant. More than 100 other people are suing the Mirror Group, including ex-footballer and TV presenter Ian Wright, Girls Aloud star Cheryl Cole, and the estate of the late singer George Michael. (The Mirror Group has steadfastly denied the allegations, adding that the claimants have waited too long to sue them.)
Even so, the prince’s case seems particularly notable; after years of being hounded and splashed across the front pages with humiliating headlines, it seems Harry is committed in his crusade against the media, whom he blames for the death of his mother and his fraught relationship with his family.
For today’s newsletter, I spoke to the Guardian media editor, Jim Waterson, about why this case is so significant.
Why is Prince Harry giving evidence so significant?
Keeping up with all of Harry’s legal proceedings against the tabloids can be a dizzying affair. But this is different:giving evidence in a court of law deviates significantly from the royal family’s approach to public life. The Duke of Sussex is thought to be the first royal to give evidence in a trial since the late 19th century – and being in the witness box means that he has opened himself up to aggressive cross-examination. (This is not the same as “taking the stand”, Jim points out, an American-ism that does not exist in the British court system.)
“The royals have always done their best to keep out of the court system in case it becomes a bit unpalatable and unpleasant for them, and reveals things that they don’t want revealed,” Jim explains. “But Harry has adopted a sort of, ‘I don’t care any more’ attitude.”
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The risks
There is a lot on the line here for the prince: he could lose a lot of money in legal fees if he has not signed a “no win no fee” agreement with his legal team, and British newspapers will probably pillory him further if the verdict does not come out in his favour. But, like all court cases, this is a “calculated risk” that Harry is taking. “He feels that the British press, particularly the tabloids, have wronged him, his mother and those around him. And he wants to do something,” Jim says. Even if he does not win the court cases, publicly dragging the Mirror group through the courts and forcing them to spend eye-watering sums on lawyers could be a way to make them feel the burn. “The impression I get is that he’s an angry, wounded guy and he can’t take it any more,” Jim says. “He’s willing to take the punches and do this, because he sees this as his way of getting justice.”
A loss for Harry could happen in two ways. Firstly, the Mirror Group argues that most of the articles he is pointing to were sourced through tips, so a judge could rule that his phone was not hacked. The fallback defence may be that he simply filed his paperwork too late. The general rule is that victims have six years from a wrongdoing or when they knew about it to start a case in the civil court system, Jim says, “so the judge could say it’s almost irrelevant whether they did it, because you simply missed a deadline”.
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What if it all pays off?
The best outcome for the prince would be that the court decided that his phone was indeed hacked by the Mirror Group, and that individuals – some of whom still occupy senior positions in the press – were aware that this was happening. Ideally, at least some of these people would be held accountable. A win like this would be a huge blow to the publisher.
For the past seven years, the Mirror Group have been able to settle phone-hacking cases out of court. If the judge rules against Prince Harry, many of the outstanding claims may be dropped and this could draw a line under this messy, expensive, embarrassing and damaging saga for the company.
“But if a judge rules in favour, and effectively says a lot of people still don’t know that they’ve been victims, this could roll on for many years to come,” Jim says. The Mirror Group has already paid £100m to settle hundreds of phone-hacking claims and legal fees at its titles over the past decade, during a time when the newspaper business is in a terrible financial state. A big payout, however nice, is unlikely to be the main motivation for Harry, though. “This isn’t just about phone hacking,” he previously said in reference to his case against Murdoch’s papers. “This is about accountability of power”.
