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Prince Harry has accused palace aides of "blocking" his attempt to bring a lawsuit against British tabloid newspaper publishers over alleged phone-hacking in order to keep the media onside in their quest to make his stepmother, Camilla, a palatable queen consort, court filings have shown.
Harry is currently suing Rupert Murdoch-owned News Group Newspapers (NGN) over alleged unlawful information-gathering techniques used by journalists at the publisher's The Sun and defunct News of the World titles between 1994 and 2016.
The News of the World closed down in 2011 after an expansive judicial review into press ethics found that phone-hacking had taken place at the paper. However, NGN has denied that the same took place at The Sun.
A three-day hearing connected with the case is currently ongoing in London, with Harry's lawyers arguing against NGN's bid to have the lawsuit thrown out. The publishers have argued that the royal is too late in filing his claims as there is a six-year cut-off limit for phone-hacking lawsuits.
In a witness statement seen by Newsweek, the prince has provided details as to why he was delayed in bringing his claim, including points that his family kept crucial information from him regarding his being a victim of unlawful information gathering, and that there was a desire within the royal institution to keep the media onside to garner favorable news coverage.
One example of this provided by the prince concerns his stepmother, Queen Camilla, who in recent interviews promoting his bombshell memoir Spare he described as a "villain" and "dangerous."
Harry claimed in his memoir that after the death of Princess Diana in 1997, there was an underlying campaign within the royal household to win public support for Camilla, who had been vilified for her role in the breakdown of his parents' marriage.
By 2005 Camilla married the then-Prince Charles, though Harry voiced concern over gaining a stepparent he felt had "sacrificed" him on her "PR altar" by allegedly leaking negative stories about him to make herself more popular.
In his witness statement, the prince alleged that his father and stepmother's staff played a role in blocking his attempts to secure a public apology from NGN over the alleged unlawful information gathering back in 2018, before his marriage to Meghan Markle.
"With hindsight, I now understand why staff at Clarence House were being so unhelpful and were seemingly blocking our every move," his statement read, "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."
He then went on to add that he had been told to "drop" his 2019 plans to sue NGN and the Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) publishing group at the request of his father and a senior palace aide, Sir Edward Young.
"I was summoned to Buckingham Palace and specifically told to drop the legal actions because they have an 'effect on all the family,'" he said.
"This was a direct request (or rather demand) from my father, Edward Young and my father's private secretary, Clive Alderton."
In his filing, the prince details at length his "very difficult relationship" with the U.K. press, stating that in his youth he was portrayed as a "thicko," "cheat," "underage drinker" and an "irresponsible drug taker."
In reference to why his family and the monarchy at large appeared to seek a special "arrangement" with the media when there was evidence of unlawful activity deployed by journalists instead of pursuing the matter through the judicial system, the prince claimed that there was a strong desire to keep a member of the royal family from testifying in a courtroom.
"The institution was incredibly nervous about this," Harry said, "and wanted to avoid at all costs the sort of reputational damage that it had suffered in 1993 when The Sun and another tabloid had unlawfully obtained and published details of an intimate telephone conversation that took place between my father and step-mother in 1989, while he was still married to my mother."
In this vein, the prince also alleged that Prince William accepted a private settlement from NGN over his own phone-hacking claim in 2020, which was kept out of the media.
Harry is not only suing NGN over allegations of unlawful information gathering used to write stories about his personal life, including his romantic life throughout the 2000s and 2010s.
The royal also currently pursuing similar legal action against MGM, publishers of the Daily Mirror, and Associated Newspapers Limited, publishers of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.
The hearings connected with NGN's request to have Harry's claims thrown out of court over them being filed beyond the six-year-deadline are scheduled to close on Thursday, with a deferred judgment expected to be handed down at a later date.
Newsweek has approached Buckingham Palace via email for comment.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more