Prince Harry surprised the High Court in London

In his war with the British tabloids, Prince Harry made a surprise appearance at London’s High Court on Monday (March 27) for a hearing against the publisher. DailyMail. Which several famous people accuse of collecting illegal information.

Arriving by taxi, the youngest son of King Charles III, who had postponed his state visit to France, rushed into the building before taking his place at the back of the room. This is an extremely rare appearance at court by a member of the British royal family.

During the hearing, which should last four days, the editor DailyMail:The Associated Newspaper (ANL) will try to defeat the claims of the Duke of Sussex, as well as singer Elton John or actress Liz Hurley.

Prince Harry’s surprise trip to London, his first in the UK since the death of Queen Elizabeth II in early September, comes just a month before the king’s coronation on May 6.

No meeting with the royal family is planned

Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, in exile in the United States after stepping down from the monarchy in 2020, have been invited to the ceremony but have not yet publicly announced whether they will honor the invitation. For months now, the return of the “Sussex” to the United Kingdom to participate in the coronation has been the subject of much speculation in the British media. Especially since the couple’s fierce attacks against the royal family.

After a documentary aired on Netflix in December, Harry published his controversial memoir, titled: The alternative (Sparein the original version), in which he talks about his youth, which was marked by drugs and alcohol, and details the breakdown of his relationship with his father Charles and brother William.

The British media report that Harry’s meeting is not expected in the coming days either. The king was originally due to be away from Britain on Monday and Tuesday on a state visit to France, which was postponed due to the social climate of sometimes violent protests over President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms. However, he kept his visit to Germany and will fly to Berlin on Wednesday. For now, if we are to believe Buckingham Palace, it is neither in London nor in Windsor, on the outskirts of the capital.

Harry is at war with the tabloids

Prince Harry blames the tabloid press for the 1997 death of his mother, Diana, who was chased by paparazzi in a car crash in Paris. He is fiercely critical of coverage of his family and has launched several lawsuits against the media.

In the lawsuit filed in London, the six plaintiffs allege they were victims of “numerous wrongful acts” by or on behalf of ANL, according to their lawyer David Sherborne. These include “illegal interception of voicemails, eavesdropping, fraudulently obtaining private information such as phone bills or medical records,” according to the lawyer, through private detectives. Most of the condemned facts refer to the years 1993-2011, some to 2018.

Announcing the move early last October, the group “completely and unequivocally denied these grotesque slanders, which appear to be nothing more than a planned and orchestrated attempt to grab headlines. El 30-year-old articles in the wiretapping scandal”.

Illegal wiretapping scandals

The British press was rocked about ten years ago by a series of illegal wiretapping scandals in the early 2000s. Princes William and Harry, however, had their feelings at a peak in the summer of 2011 when the News of the World listened to the voicemail. A schoolgirl went missing and finally found Millie Dowler dead.

The revelations led to the botched closure of media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday tabloid, which paid two million pounds (€2.3 million at the time) to Millie Dowler’s family in what was then an amicable deal. Meanwhile, many personalities have taken the tabloids to court since. intercepted, this is the first time such claims have been made against the publisher of the Daily Mail.

In the video, “Silence is treason,” says Prince Harry in one of the interviews