Harry and Meghan: legal actions show level of distrust of UK press

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s determination to pursue legal actions against the media may be a high-risk public relations strategy but it emphasises their disenchantment with the British press.

Within the space of a few days last autumn, Harry and Meghan launched two separate claims over alleged phone hacking and invasion of privacy.

The death in 1997 of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash in Paris after being hounded by the paparazzi, may have created a legacy of distrust of the tabloids. In a BBC interview three years ago, Harry said: “The people that chased her into the tunnel were the same people taking photographs of her dying on the backseat of the car.”

Harry and Meghan are not the only royals to resort to suing newspapers. Prince Charles, for example, won a judgment against the Mail on Sunday in 2006 over publication of extracts from his private diaries.

The couple’s court actions include:

• Lawyers for Meghan lodging claims against the Mail on Sunday alleging breach of copyright, invasion of privacy and misuse of personal data after the newspaper published excerpts from a letter she sent to her father complaining about his treatment of her.

In its defence, Associated Newspapers, which publishes the paper, has argued that she “did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy” for the letter’s contents because there was “no mutual understanding” between the duchess and her father that the correspondence should remain secret.

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The Mail on Sunday has warned it will seek disclosure from Meghan of her exchanges with her Canadian friend Jessica Mulroney about allegedly providing information to the media to influence what was published.

Schillings, a law firm specialising in libel and “reputation management”, launched the legal action for Meghan in September. There have been no public hearings in the action so far.

• Harry is separately suing the publishers of the Mirror, the Sun and the now defunct News of the World, over claims that evidence of misconduct involving phone hacking has been concealed and destroyed.

The prince has joined a group litigation launched by others who have said they were victims of having their private phone messages intercepted and published.

Because there are so many claims against Newsgroup Newspapers and Mirror Group Newspapers the cases have been joined together and are being heard in regular batches. Most are settled out of court through payments; Harry’s claims are not expected to come to trial, if they reach court, until late this year at the earliest.

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The claims may refer to historical interference. Harry and his brother, Prince William, were at the centre of a series of hacking allegations after it emerged in the early 2000s that tabloid journalists were routinely accessing public figures’ voicemails to find stories.

• Last spring, Harry and Meghan accepted substantial damages and an apology from a news agency that took aerial photographs of his Cotswolds home, forcing him and his wife, the Duchess of Sussex, to move out.

Lawyers for Harry maintained that the photographs taken by Splash News and Picture Agency amounted to misuse of private information that breached his privacy.

The prince applied for permission to have a statement announcing the terms of the out-of-court settlement read in court, laying down a firm marker in his fight to protect the privacy of his family.

In 2017 the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were separately awarded €100,000 (£91,000) in damages and interest against the French celebrity magazine Closer and two photographers.