Prince Harry can sue The Sun over unlawful information gathering

High Court judge advances portion of Duke of Sussex's snooping lawsuit against 'The Sun' publisher to trial

Prince Harry departs the Rolls Building of the High Court in London. Reuters

Prince Harry can move forward with parts of his lawsuit against News Group Newspapers, the publisher of The Sun and the now-defunct News of the World.

This ruling came from a London High Court judge on Thursday.

Prince Harry, 38, accused journalists and private investigators from these NGN outlets of unlawful information gathering and misconduct, spanning from the mid-1990s to 2016.

However, the court dismissed his allegations of phone hacking, citing that these were lodged too late.

NGN had previously pleaded in April for the dismissal of these claims, arguing they fell outside the legal time limit of six years.

They denied any instances of unlawful activity at The Sun and contested the existence of a “secret agreement” between the royal family and senior NGN executives.

Prince Harry's lawyers had argued that NGN's challenge to his claim is an attempt to undermine this purported “secret agreement”, which Harry learnt of in 2012.

Supporting evidence for this agreement, they said, includes correspondence between palace staff and senior executives at Rupert Murdoch's parent companies of NGN in 2017 and 2018.

In written arguments, Prince Harry's legal counsel, David Sherborne, also cited the large settlement made by the Prince of Wales to NGN in 2020 as additional proof of the clandestine agreement's existence.

Prince Harry will not be the first UK royal to enter a witness box. In 1870, his great-great-great grandfather, who became King Edward VII - voluntarily appeared as a witness. PA

King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. King Edward appeared as a witness in a divorce case when Lady Harriet Mordaunt falsely accused the heir to the throne of being one of her lovers. PA

Prince Harry at the Royal Courts Of Justice in London. AP

In 1994, the late Princess Diana was preparing to enter the witness box in her High Court action over photographs of her exercising in a gym. In the end she won her privacy battle without having to go to court. PA

In 2002, Princess Royal Anne was summoned to appear before magistrates after being accused of keeping a dangerous dog after her English bull terrier dog Dotty bit two children in Windsor Great Park. PA

In 2004 the Duke of Gloucester appeared before magistrates in Ely, Cambridgeshire and was banned from driving for six months after admitting his fourth speeding offence in three years. Getty Images

NGN's representative, Anthony Hudson KC, criticised this as an attempt to fundamentally revise Harry's claim.

He also dismissed the validity of the alleged agreement, saying it was “such a secret agreement that no one apart from the claimant knows anything about it”.

Prince Harry, who has been involved in six legal battles at the High Court in recent months, has levelled accusations against three major newspaper publishers over alleged unlawful information gathering and lodged legal challenges against the Home Office concerning his security.

This is a developing story ...