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Prince Harry's latest legal action against one of Britain's largest news corporations "evokes memories" of those that followed widespread phone-hacking allegations in the 2000s, Newsweek has heard.
The prince, along with five other high-profile public figures including pop-star Sir Elton John and model Elizabeth Hurley, have filed a joint suit against Associated Newspapers, the publishers of Britain's Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline, for exercising unlawful information-gathering techniques.
The claims against the newsgroup include the hiring of individuals to bug people's cars and record private telephone calls. The lawsuit is one of the most significant to be brought against a U.K. media organization in recent years and is the latest in a number of cases brought against Associated Newspapers by Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle.
Various claimants vs. Associated Newspapers Limited
On October 6 Prince Harry was named as a plaintiff in a new legal action brought by a group of public figures against Associated Newspapers Limited, one of Britain's most prominent publishing organizations.
Baroness Doreen Lawrence of Clarendon OBE, Sir Elton John and David Furnish; Elizabeth Hurley, and Sadie Frost are also claimants to the lawsuit, which alleges that Associated Newspapers has participated in unlawful activity.
A press release from Hamlins, the legal team representing the prince, read: "These individuals have become aware of compelling and highly distressing evidence that they have been the victims of abhorrent criminal activity and gross breaches of privacy by Associated Newspapers."
The allegations include the hiring of private investigators to secretly place listening devices inside people's cars and homes; the commissioning of individuals to listen into and record people's live, private telephone calls; the payment of police officials to obtain inside, sensitive information; the impersonation of medical professionals to obtain private medical information; and accessing financial records through illicit means and manipulation.
"It is apparent to these individuals that the alleged crimes listed above represent the tip of the iceberg—and that many other innocent people remain unknowing victims of similar terrible and reprehensible covert acts," the legal press release states.
"They have now therefore banded together to uncover the truth, and to hold the journalists responsible fully accountable, many of whom still hold senior positions of authority and power today."
In response, Associated Newspapers issued an immediate statement refuting the claims. A spokesperson for the organization said: "We utterly and unambiguously refute these preposterous smears which appear to be nothing more than a pre-planned and orchestrated attempt to drag the Mail titles into the phone-hacking scandal concerning articles up to 30 years old.
"These unsubstantiated and highly defamatory claims—based on no credible evidence—appear to be simply a fishing expedition by claimants and their lawyers, some of whom have already pursued cases elsewhere."
At this stage little else is known about the lawsuit and how the claims made within it specifically relate to Harry. However, the allegations of breaches of privacy in these ways echo those made in one of the biggest media inquiries of the past two decades centering around "phone-hacking".
What is being claimed "evokes memories" of the phone-hacking scandal, Georgie Collins, head of IP and Media, and Louise Ash, IP and Media, at London law firm Irwin Mitchell LLP told Newsweek of the historic lawsuits brought by high-profile figures against the News of the World in the 2000s.
"However these claims are far more wide-ranging and more about phone tapping rather than phone-hacking.
"Phone-hacking involved accessing a person's voicemail messages. In this case it is claimed (among other things) that listening devices were placed inside people's cars and homes and that conversations were surreptitiously listened to and recorded.
"Added to this are the explosive claims of impersonation of individuals to obtain medical records and the accessing of bank accounts. Such claims are far more invasive and serious than the phone-hacking cases, amounting to significant criminal offenses," they continued.
"It's worth noting that Sadie Frost and Elizabeth Hurley were among some of the high-profile names involved in the phone-hacking litigation, as was the former Private Secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry."
Prince Harry, Phone-Hacking Lawsuits and Media Accountability
This is not the first time that Prince Harry has been involved in lawsuits surrounding unlawful information gathering techniques alleged against the U.K. media.
In 2007, Clive Goodman, a royal correspondent for the News Group title News of The World, and his associate, private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, were jailed for intercepting voicemail messages belonging to a close aide of Harry and his brother Prince William.
An investigation by The Guardian newspaper breathed new life into the phone-hacking scandal in 2009 and led to the 2011 Leveson Inquiry, a U.K. judicial inquiry into press and media ethics.
In 2019 it was confirmed by Buckingham Palace that the royal had filed lawsuits against the owners of the Sun and the Daily Mirror newspapers over direct phone-hacking allegations.
The lawsuits have made slow progress three years on from their initial filing, however, both titles have been served with a large number of similar lawsuits so it is possible that the prince's cases have yet to come up.
Harry is also currently in another ongoing legal battle with Associated Newspapers—a libel lawsuit in which he is objecting to reports made at the time his legal battle with the U.K. Home Office over security was filed.
The prince won the preliminary round in this suit, with a judge ruling that the reporting by the Mail on Sunday had defamatory meaning. The newspaper will now defend this in the next stages of the action.
The prince's participation in numerous lawsuits against media outlets have shown his willingness to become a "key player" in the "fight for privacy," a media lawyer previously told Newsweek.
No further information has yet been released about the latest legal case.
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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