On Thursday, London’s High Court dismissed Britain’s Prince Harry claims of phone hacking against Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper arm, News Group Newspapers (NGN) as they were filed after the six-year time limit for legal action had expired. The court ruled that some of Harry’s allegations of wrongdoing against NGN’s tabloids, the Sun and the now-defunct News of the World between 1996 and 2011, could proceed.
In his lawsuit, Prince Harry accuses NGN of committing multiple acts of misconduct on behalf of its tabloids, spanning from the mid-1990s until 2016. The Duke of Sussex alleges that his phone was hacked, and that investigators and deception were used to unlawfully gather information on him for over two decades.
NGN argued during hearings in April that the claims should be struck out due to the statute of limitations. The court agreed with NGN on the phone hacking claims, stating that Prince Harry was well aware of the phone hacking scandal, which began in 2019, and should have brought the claims sooner. The judge nonetheless gave him permission to go through with his accusations of other illegal information collecting, including the use of private detectives to snoop on him.
The decision, according to a representative for News Group Newspapers, dramatically narrows the scope of Prince Harry’s legal claim. They called it a “significant victory.” Additionally, the court dismissed Harry’s claim of a secret agreement between Buckingham Palace and the press as implausible.
Despite the dismissal of the phone hacking claims, Prince Harry will continue to pursue the newspaper for other alleged illegal activities related to gathering information for stories. A trial on these matters is scheduled for January next year.
While Prince Harry’s phone hacking claims did not meet the court’s threshold of plausibility and cogency, his fight against alleged illegal information gathering will continue. The court’s ruling sets the stage for a significant legal showdown in the coming months as Prince Harry seeks justice and accountability for the alleged misconduct carried out by NGN’s ‘tabloids.
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