Prince Harry told the High Court in London on Wednesday that Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publisher of ‘Daily Mail’ and ‘Mail on Sunday’, still continue to harass him following his legal action and has made his wife, Meghan’s, life “hell”.
The Duke of Sussex’ s voice cracked as, at the conclusion of his testimony before Judge Matthew Nicklin on the third day of the trial against ANL, he claimed that the intrusion “has gone from bad to worse” since he sued the company in 2022, along with six other plaintiffs.
“They keep coming after me. They’ve made my wife’s life a living hell, your honor,” he declared, visibly emotional, in response to questions from his lawyer, David Sherborne.
In the Duke’s specific case, the nine-week trial will examine 14 articles written primarily by journalists Rebecca English and Katie Nicholl between 2001 and 2013, in which they allegedly used illegal practices to obtain private information.
The prince accuses the company of resorting to voicemail hacking, landline tapping, ‘blagging’ or data mining by deception, physical eavesdropping and obtaining phone bills and flight details of his then girlfriend, Chelsy Davy.
The youngest son of Carlos III said today that the case against ANL, which adds to previous lawsuits he won against other media, is a “recurring traumatic experience” and a “repetition of the past” for him.
“I don’t think my life is an open ban for these people to market it,” she said, adding, “Their claim that I have no right to privacy (because I am a member of the royal family) is disgusting.”
During today’s session, Prince Harry was questioned primarily by Associated Newspapers’ lawyer Antony White, who argues that the plaintiffs filed their complaints out of time and that, in any event, they are based “on conjecture” and not on conclusive evidence connecting the challenged articles to payments to third parties, such as private detectives.
Prince Harry explained that he began taking legal action against several media groups in 2019, after his wife – with whom he now lives in the United States – also did so against ANL for publishing a confidential letter she had sent to his father.
He maintained that the rules of the monarchy prevented him from doing so before, as the policy was ‘never complain, never explain’.
Contrary to what the defense claims, the duke denied that his social circle was “porous” and purposely provided news to English and Nicholl, since the type of information that appeared in his texts, he pointed out, “were not things that he would have discussed with any friend”.
As an example, those articles revealed details of conversations with his brother, William, about his late mother, Princess Diana, as well as plans to meet Davy or the proposal of his former nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, to make him godfather to her son.
In addition to Prince Harry, the singer Elton John and his husband David Furnish; the actresses Liz Hurley – who is likely to testify tomorrow – and Sadie Frost; Doreen Lawrence – mother of the young black man Stephen Lawrence, murdered in 1993 in a racist attack – and the former Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes are also suing ANL.
Before the trial against Associated Newspapers, the duke has already won other lawsuits for wiretapping and illegal obtaining of information, reported Agencia EFE, against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) in 2023 and News Group Newspapers, publisher of ‘The Sun’ and the now defunct ‘News of the World’, in 2025.
Find out more at ‘QueOnnda.com’.
