The time has come to testify. Prince Harry is finally preparing to enter the judicial ring in his fight against the British tabloid press. No more waiting, delays, and frustrating legal hurdles to speak in court. Barring last-minute unforeseen circumstances, the Duke of Sussex will testify under oath and in person at the High Court of England and Wales, the neo-Gothic building of the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
He is summoned first thing in the morning on Monday, June 5, and his testimony against the Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) could begin that same afternoon or Tuesday morning, once the arguments of the lawyers for both parties have concluded. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is not expected to accompany her husband on this new return to the United Kingdom, her third in three months.
The case against the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and The People tabloids, in addition to the group's digital publications, is the first to go to trial in civil lawsuits against the media faced by the young son of Carlos III and the Missing Lady Di
In preliminary phases, the lawsuit continues for the hacking of mobile phones and other forms of crime deployed by editors and external collaborators, whether they were private investigators or photographers, to obtain private information against News Corporation and its leading newspaper in the sector, The Sun, to which Harry joined in 2019. In addition, the lawsuit that he launched last year against the holding company for the Mail publications in coordination with equally or more famous personalities, including Elton John, is still pending.
The common denominator of all the causes is the duke's refusal to accept apologies and compensation before his allegations of "usual and extensive" illegality in the competitive tabloid sector are settled in separate oral trials. He does not want to follow the example of his brother Guillermo, who reached an out-of-court agreement with Rupert Murdoch's group in exchange for keeping quiet about the excesses of The Sun and the now closed News of The World, according to Harry reveals in legal documents . It is speculated that the compensation collected by the future king exceeds one million euros.
The case against the Mirror centers on 33 of 147 articles that the Duke suspects contain information obtained through illegal methods. They cover a limited time range - from 1996 to 2009 - and deal with various personal affairs and scandals revealed by the media since his childhood, from the consumption of cannabis and cocaine to romantic relationships that came to nothing or disputes between siblings and the relationship with his mother.
Harry will now have to answer publicly before the Court for the same episodes, in defense of his accusations and in response to the questioning of the MGN lawyer and the sporadic questions made by Judge Timothy Fancourt.
MGN admitted hacking mobile phones in 2015 - and publicly apologized to its victims - but denies that the prince was on target and only acknowledges having once hired a private detective who used criminal techniques to discover him in a nightclub From london.
There are no known precedents in the 20th century for a member of the royal family sitting on the witness stand. Queen Elizabeth prevented her heir, Charles, from testifying in the criminal trial against Diana's butler, Paul Burrell, who was accused of stealing belongings from the late Princess of Wales. A sudden memory of the now-defunct monarch sank the case against the veteran palace employee in 2002. That same year, Princess Anne briefly stepped foot in court and pleaded guilty to allowing her bull terrier dog to bite two children. . She was fined about 500 euros for the crime.
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