Britain’s Prince Harry arrived at London’s High Court on Monday for a listening to in opposition to the writer of the Daily Mail newspaper over alleged phone-tapping and different breaches of privateness. Harry, the youthful son of King Charles, has introduced a lawsuit in opposition to Associated Newspapers alongside different well-known figures together with singer Elton John, his husband and filmmaker David Furnish, and actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost.

The first day of a preliminary listening to is because of start on Monday, with not one of the claimants anticipated to talk. The seven claimants launched the motion final yr, however authorized restrictions requested by the newspaper group imply particular particulars of their allegations haven’t thus far been made public.

According to a press release launched in October by legal professionals for Frost and Harry, the case in opposition to Associated Newspapers contains accusations of bugging folks’s calls, vehicles and houses, and paying police for delicate data. Associated Newspapers, writer of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and the Mail Online, has mentioned it “utterly and unambiguously” denies the allegations. It is searching for, throughout 4 days of hearings this week at London’s High Court, to have the case thrown out.

Harry is already suing the Mail on Sunday for libel over an article about his safety preparations, and final yr gained damages from the identical paper after one other defamation declare. His spouse Meghan additionally gained a privateness case in opposition to the writer in 2021 for printing a letter she had written to her estranged father. Meanwhile, Harry is predicted to seem in court docket in May to provide proof in a libel trial in opposition to the Daily Mirror newspaper over accusations of phone-hacking.

Media intrusion was one of many causes Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, cited for stepping again from royal duties and shifting to California to forge new lives and careers. They fiercely attacked the press of their current six-part Netflix documentary collection and in Harry’s memoir “Spare”. However, probably essentially the most notable claimant within the case is Doreen Lawrence, the mom of Black teenager Stephen Lawrence who was murdered in a 1993 racist assault. She was later made a baroness for her campaigning work.

The Mail had championed bringing her son’s killers to justice and mentioned the allegations involving her have been “appalling and utterly groundless smears”. In a press release final October, a spokesman for Associated Newspapers mentioned the writer had “the greatest respect and admiration” for Lawrence and was saddened she had been persuaded to affix the motion by “whoever is cynically and unscrupulously orchestrating these claims”.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)