June 05, (THEWILL) – Prince Harry will testify against Mirror Group Newspaper this week.
His testimony will make him the first senior British royal to give evidence in court for more than a century when he testifies this week against the newspaper.
Harry is expected to take the witness stand at London’s High Court in a trial considering unlawful information-gathering claims against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).
King Charles III’s younger son and other high-profile figures had alleged that the publisher of the newspaper engaged in illegal activities, including phone hacking, at its titles and are seeking damages.
The case is one of several that Harry has brought against British newspaper groups since stepping down from royal duties in early 2020 and relocating to the United States.
The MGN trial, which is expected to last up to seven weeks, kicked off last month, days after Charles’s May 6 coronation which Harry attended.
The California based prince has had a difficult relationship with the media, especially since he and his American wife, Meghan left Britain.
They have filled multiple lawsuits and repeatedly lashed out over alleged privacy invasions by photographers in particular.
In the interviews he granted and his explosive memoir ‘Spare’ released in January, Harry hit out at other royals, accusing them of colluding with the press.
In court filings unveiled in April, Harry claimed the royal family as an institution had struck a secret agreement with one UK publisher that had prevented him from suing, to avoid a royal entering the witness box.
He also alleged the monarchy wanted to prevent the opening of a Pandora’s Box of negative coverage that could tarnish the royal brand.
The MGN case centres on claims its tabloids conducted unlawful information-gathering, including voicemail tapping, to obtain stories about Harry and other high-profile figures.
At the outset of the trial on May 10, MGN apologised and admitted to some evidence of unlawful information-gathering and assured that such conduct will never be repeated.
But it denied voicemail interception and argued that some claims had been brought too late.
The claimants’ lawyer, David Sherborne submitted that industrial scale illegal activities were happening at MGN and had been approved by senior executives.
Harry’s unofficial biographer Omid Scobie, who co-authored a best-selling 2020 book about Harry and Meghan also claimed in a submission that he was shown how to hack voicemails while on work experience at MGN title ‘The Sunday People’.
Scobie also said that while on work experience at its sister paper, The Mirror, he overheard the then-editor, Piers Morgan being told that information for a story about Australian pop star, Kylie Minogue had come from voicemail.
However, Morgan, editor of the tabloid between 1995 and 2004, has denied any involvement in phone hacking.
