Prince Harry’s latest legal claim against the publishers of the Daily Mail could go to trial, a High Court judge has said.
The Duke of Sussex has accused the publisher of allegedly commissioning unlawful activities, including hiring private investigators to place listening devices inside cars, recording private phone conversations “blagging” private records, and even burglaries to order.
At a preliminary hearing on Tuesday High Court judge Mr Justice Nicklin said that it was important to progress the case to an eventual trial.
He has among a group of high-profile individuals fighting the case, including Stephen Lawrence’s mother, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, actresses Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley, and politician Sir Simon Hughes.
The group is bringing legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), which firmly denies the allegations, previously telling the court that they are “lurid” and “simply preposterous.
On the first day of the preliminary hearing on Tuesday, Mr Justice Nicklin told the court: “My broad objective is we fix a trial date… It will probably start on 14 January 2026.”
The judge continued that the date may change and repeated that it was an “objective”.
He added: “I don’t know what is going to happen in various stages of the litigation… That objective may ultimately be thwarted.”
Th hearing in London is due conclude on Wednesday and will deal with requests for documents, costs and a bid to have part of the case dismissed without a trial. Cost budgets for both sides combined total more than £38 million.
Hundreds of people, including the Duke of Sussex, have previously brought legal action against other newspaper publishers over allegations of unlawful information gathering, including related to phone hacking.
Harry was previously awarded £140,600 in damages after suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) and faces a trial in January 2025 for his claim against News Group Newspapers (NGN).
Lawyers for ANL said that it would be “wrong” to treat the claims brought against ANL in the same way as cases against those publishers.
Catrin Evans KC, for ANL, said: “Critically, the ‘bedrock’ of liability in the MGN and NGN cases consisted of criminal convictions of certain journalists and far-reaching admissions about the extensive use of unlawful acts … there is no similar ‘bedrock’ of matters here.”
David Sherborne, lawyer for the individuals, told the court that the individuals “were, in different ways, each the victim of numerous unlawful acts”, including “illegally intercepting voicemail messages; listening into live landline calls; (and) obtaining private information” between 1993 and 2018.
The barrister also said in his written submissions that “there have been deletions of some, but not all, of journalists’ emails” at ANL, and that some documents were destroyed during the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking.
In court, Ms Evans denied the allegation, stating it was a claim of “deliberate tampering with the documents which is of course strongly denied”.
The hearing before Mr Justice Nicklin and Judge David Cook is due to conclude on Wednesday, with a further hearing expected in May next year.
The full trial of the claims could then be held in early 2026.
