Yahoo News Prince Harry Pulls Libel Claim Against British Tabloid Mail on Sunday
Prince Harry has dropped a libel case against Associated Newspapers, the publisher of The Mail on Sunday, leaving the Duke of Sussex on the hook for unspecified legal costs.
On Friday, The Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday‘s sister title, reported that Prince Harry withdrew the legal case just hours before a deadline to submit key documents related to the libel action. The official website for the Sussexes said the Duke was instead set to focus on the safety of his family and his legal case against the Home Office.
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“His focus remains there and on the safety of his family, rather than these legal proceedings that give a continued platform to the Mail‘s false claims all those years ago,” the statement wrote.
As part of a libel action brought against Associated Newspapers in July 2022, Prince Harry claimed sections of an article in the Mail on Sunday about his legal claim against the British government’s Home Office were defamatory.
The tabloid story addressed changes to the Sussexes’ publicly funded security after they decided to move to California and stop being working Royals. In a separate legal case against the U.K. Home Office, Prince Harry is seeking a judicial review to force the government to provide official security for him and his family, including his two children with wife Meghan Markle.
The couple proposed paying for their security but wanted it to be provided via the Home Office. The legal costs Prince Harry must pay out after dropping the libel claim against the Mail on Sunday have not been set by the U.K. courts.
But the Daily Mail report put the Associated Newspapers’ costs at £250,000 (US$317,000), on top of Prince Harry’s own steep legal fees.
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