Prince Harry Could 'Blame' Royals if Court Rules Out Phone …
Prince Harry could look to blame the royal family if his phone-hacking lawsuits against tabloid newspaper publishers are thrown out on grounds that he has filed them too late. The prince has said that his family and royal aides delayed the process. Newsweek's chief royal correspondent, Jack Royston, told a U.K. morning news show that Harry could look to blame his family, principally his father King Charles III and his aides, for causing him to miss his opportunity of holding the tabloids to justice in court.
"It is his big crusade, his big project. He is at war with the media," Royston told Sky News' Kay Burley on Wednesday morning.
Prince Harry photographed with his brother, Prince William, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, London, July 10, 2018. The prince could look to blame his family if his ongoing lawsuits with British tabloids are dismissed. Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
Harry is suing three major news conglomerates in Britain over allegations of illegal information gathering, such as phone-hacking, wiretapping and bugging.
These were used by journalists to write stories about his personal life from the 1990s to 2016. A three-day hearing in his lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers (NGN), publishers of the Sun and now-defunct News of the World titles, is taking place in London. The publisher has said that the judge should dismiss Harry's suit because there is a six-year time limitation in which to bring phone-hacking claims.
It has now expired. This is a similar argument made by lawyers for Associated Newspapers Limited, publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, which Harry is also suing. ANL denied the claims made against it but added the royal was too late in pursuing a claim. In both cases, Harry and his legal team have argued that the lawsuits should not be thrown out, but that they should be given the chance to go to trial.
His argument for filing his lawsuits after the six-year timeframe is that he only recently became aware of his right to bring a claim. He said efforts were made by his family and their aides to keep information from him pertaining to the alleged illegal acts. If a judge did find that Harry was too late in bringing his claims and that the cases should not move forward, it is likely it could widen the well-reported rift between the prince and his British-based family.
"He will probably be pulling his hair out," Royston said on TV. "It is there in his witness statement that he probably could have launched some of these lawsuits a while ago. He will be absolutely heartbroken if the court rules that he left it too late, and he will no doubt blame his family and the palace. "He will feel that it is their fault that he missed his opportunity," Royston said. "So, actually if he loses, that could sow further division between him and his family as well."
Prince Harry photographed with King Charles III (when Prince of Wales) and Prince William in London, February 13, 2014.
Harry disclosed in a witness statement that his family appeared to keep information from him regarding illegal techniques used by tabloids.
John Stillwell - WPA Pool/Getty imagesAs part of the ongoing hearings connected with lawsuit against NGN, Harry's witness statement was released. In it, he not only details his "very difficult" relationship with the tabloid press, but also makes allegations against his family. These center on how they handled knowledge of phone-hacking and illegal information gathering around them.
Harry said that the royals made a "secret agreement" with publishers not to publicly pursue claims, out of fear it would provoke negative publicity. He added that he was dissuaded from taking the publishers to task sooner because it would have negative impact on his wider family. "With hindsight, I now understand why staff at Clarence House were being so unhelpful and were seemingly blocking our every move," Harry wrote of a period in 2018 where he was pursuing a public apology from NGN for their actions before his marriage to Meghan Markle.
"As they had a specific long-term strategy to keep the media (including NGN) onside in order to smooth the way for my stepmother (and father) to be accepted by the British public as Queen Consort (and King respectively) when the time came, and anything that might upset the applecart in this regard (including the suggestion of resolution of our phone-hacking claims) was to be avoided at all costs." Harry added that "when I did actually issue my hacking claims against both MGN and NGN in October 2019, I was summoned to Buckingham Palace and specifically told to drop the legal actions because they have an 'effect on all the family'. This was a direct request (or rather demand) from my father, Edward Young and my father's Private Secretary, Clive Alderton."
The hearings in connection with NGN's request to have Harry's lawsuit thrown out over the expired time limitation will conclude on Thursday.
A deferred judgement is expected to be handed down at a later date. The prince is set to publicly reunite with his family for the first time since the publication of his highly critical memoir and Netflix docuseries projects, at his father's London coronation on May 6. James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London.
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