Although the trial starts three days after his father’s coronation, King Charles III, Prince Harry is not expected to testify until early or mid-June.
Prince Harry is scheduled to testify in a London courtroom sometime in June as part of his ongoing legal battle against several British tabloids over phone hacking allegations, his lawyers announced on Wednesday.
The trial is set to begin on May 9th in the High Court and is expected to last between six and seven weeks. Alongside three other claimants, the Duke of Sussex is suing the publisher of The Mirror. This latest development adds to the high-profile nature of the case, which has already garnered significant media attention and sparked debates about the press.
Prince Harry is set to testify in early or mid-June during a trial involving phone hacking allegations against British tabloids, as per a preliminary schedule of witnesses.
The trial is due to begin three days after the coronation of his father, King Charles III, but it’s unclear whether Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, will attend the event.
This will be Harry’s second time in the High Court within three months after his recent surprise appearance in a similar case. During that case, he sat through three days of hearings to see if the lawsuit brought by him, along with Elton John, actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, and others, survived a legal challenge by the publisher of The Daily Mail.
Harry’s presence in court demonstrated the significance of the case to him in his broader fight against the British press. He has expressed his desire to reform the tabloid press as part of his life’s work, and he already has multiple lawsuits against the news media
For over a decade, British tabloid publishers have paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to settle claims related to phone hacking carried out by journalists and private investigators. Among these claims is an allegation that Mirror Group Newspapers intercepted voicemail messages of Prince Harry.
The Mirror publisher, however, is contesting the claims and argues that they were brought too late. In May, a trial will commence as a test case by four claimants, including Prince Harry, against the Mirror out of a larger group of well-known people who have sued the publisher.
Other claimants include Coronation Street actress Nikki Sanderson, Fiona Wightman (comedian Paul Whitehouse’s ex-wife), and actor Michael Turner. The case has raised important questions about journalistic ethics, privacy, and the responsibilities of the press in the public eye.
