Prince Harry and Sir Elton John have made surprise appearances in London’s High Court as their legal showdown against tabloid media outlets gets underway.
Harry, Elton and other high-profile celebrities are suing a group of British tabloids for alleged phone tapping and other invasions of privacy.
Harry’s presence in court is a sign of the importance he attaches to the case, one of several lawsuits the Duke of Sussex has brought against the media.
But in an early win for The Daily Mail, the outlet’s parent company successfully invoked the Human Rights Act to prevent the names of 73 journalists and editorial executives being publicly named.
The Daily Mail’s lawyers said publishing the names would breach the journalists’ right to a fair trial under the Human Rights Act, according to a report in The Guardian.
Harry’s barrister David Sherborne said the demand for privacy was surprising, seeing as the newspaper had campaigned for press freedom.
“They say different rules apply to their journalists suspected of wrongdoing, as opposed to others suspected of wrongdoing.”
The case alleges Associated Newspapers, which publishes titles including the Daily Mail, commissioned the “breaking and entry into private property,” engaging in unlawful acts that included hiring private investigators to bug homes and cars and record private phone conversations.
“They were the victim of numerous unlawful acts carried out by the defendant, or by those acting on the instructions of its newspapers, The Daily Mail and The Mail On Sunday,” lawyer David Sherborne said in a court document.
Other plaintiffs include John’s husband David Furnish and actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, who was also in court.
John arrived after a lunch break and sat in the gallery.
Harry sat near the rear of the court and took notes as lawyers discussed preliminary matters.
The allegations date back to 1993 and continue beyond 2018, Sherborne said.
The publisher said the claims are too old to be brought now and should also be thrown out because because they rely on information the newspapers turned over in confidentiality for a 2012 probe into media law breaking.
“It would be surprising indeed for any reasonably informed member of the public, let alone a figure in the public eye, to have been unaware of these matters,” lawyer Adrian Beltrami said in writing.
Britain held a year-long inquiry into press ethics after revelations in 2011 that News of the World tabloid employees eavesdropped on the mobile phone voicemails of celebrities, politicians and a teenage murder victim.
Owner Rupert Murdoch shut down the newspaper amid a criminal investigation and public uproar.
Several journalists were convicted and Murdoch’s company paid millions in damages to dozens of hacking victims.
In the inquiry’s 2012 report, Lord Justice Brian Leveson said “outrageous” behaviour by some in the press had “wreaked havoc with the lives of innocent people whose rights and liberties have been disdained”.
Judge Matthew Nicklin, who is hearing the current eavesdropping case, is also overseeing a separate libel lawsuit Harry brought against Associated Newspapers over an article about his quest for police protection when he and his family visit Britain.
Harry, the younger son of the King, and his wife, the former actress Meghan Markle, stepped down as working royals in 2020 and moved to the US, citing what they described as the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media.
Harry has said he wants to make reforming the British media his life’s work.
He fumes at the media throughout his memoir Spare, published in January. He blamed an overly aggressive press for the 1997 death of his mother Princess Diana and also accused the media of hounding Meghan.
The couple has turned to British courts to combat what they see as media mistreatment.
In December 2021, Meghan won an invasion-of-privacy case against Associated Newspapers over the Mail on Sunday‘s publication of a letter she wrote to her estranged father.
Harry is also suing the publisher of another tabloid, the Mirror, in a separate hacking suit.
