When Prince Harry makes one of his comparatively rare returns to Britain, he tends to exhibit one of two personae. The first is the old Harry, the popular, light-hearted figure who possesses a common touch that most of his family sorely lack and who is consequently much sought-after for charitable functions and flesh-pressing. This side of him was on display when he last visited the country in September. The second, however, is the stern, grim-faced figure who is always on the hunt for some institution to rail against. His targets are numerous and include the government, newspaper publishers and, of course, his own family, who get it in the neck on a regular basis in the most public and embarrassing of fashions.
It is the latter Harry who has returned to the country of his birth this week, and this time even those not especially well disposed towards him might believe that he has a reasonable quest. A trial is beginning at the High Court today that sees various high-profile claimants, including the Duke of Sussex, Sir Elton John and Sadie Frost, take action in a so-called ‘super claim’ against Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail. They believe unscrupulous reporters and editors were responsible for a series of phone hacking incidents and used them to gather personal information for various stories.
The time has now come for Harry to wield the simple sword of truth
Similar cases against the Sun’s publishers, News UK and the Mirror Group Newspapers have been settled expensively out of court. Yet Associated deny all responsibility and have called the claims of wrongdoing ‘lurid’ and ‘simply preposterous’, a description that might equally be applied to some of the litigants in this case, not least Harry’s never-knowingly-underpublicised barrister David Sherborne. The scene is therefore set for an expensive (the rumoured cost is £40 million) and high-profile showdown that will undoubtedly dominate media coverage for the nine-week duration of the trial. The outcome will be hugely consequential for whichever side loses.
Harry is already in the country and is expected to show his face at the High Court today in solidarity with his fellow claimants – including his good friend Sir Elton and his husband, David Furnish – as well as giving evidence in court 76 this week. A ‘friend’ of Harry informed the Daily Telegraph that ‘confident and ready are the words I’d use to describe his current state of mind’. They added that the Duke was ‘fortunate’ to have the means to pursue such a case; the millions Harry has earnt from Netflix may have been useful in that regard.
After being frustrated from having his day in court on previous occasions, the time has now come for Harry to wield the simple sword of truth. This will be a test for him and his fellow litigators to see whether their claim is successful or not. That the private investigator Gavin Burrows – a vital part of the claimants’ case – has now publicly claimed that he never acted on behalf of the Mail group to conduct unlawful information gathering, despite an apparently forged statement suggesting that he did, has muddied the waters intriguingly. This suggests that the result of this case is by no means certain.
The rest of the royal family are giving the Duke a wide berth. The King has found himself with some official duties to occupy him in Scotland – even if he wanted to see his son, he is very conscious of justice being blind and of not wishing to show any partisan affiliation in the case. Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales has also headed north of the border this week so as to avoid any accidental encounter with his estranged brother.
Even as Harry awaits the government’s decision on whether to allow him taxpayer-funded police protection or not when he is in Britain – presumably he’ll be footing the bill for private security this week – he must be considering whether the levels of estrangement and angst are really all worth it. Drama surely awaits: Harry undoubtedly lives in interesting times, for him and for the rest of us.
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