Prince Harry caused a surprise when he arrived at the High Court in London this Monday morning, March 27, where a hearing is being held against the Chron’s publisher, Associated Newspaper, who has been accused by several celebrities of leaking information on illegal way to have collected.
Footage from Sky News showed the 38-year-old prince, who has lived in the United States since leaving the monarchy, exiting a minibus and entering the building.
During a four-day hearing, the editor of the Chron is trying to settle the lawsuits of King Charles’ youngest son, singer Elton John or even actress Liz Hurley.
detectives and eavesdroppers
At war with the tabloids, Prince Harry blames the tabloids for the death of his mother Diana in 1997 in a car crash in Paris, followed by the paparazzi. In the London court case, the six plaintiffs allege that ANL used detectives to bug them in their car or at home.
They also allege that payments were made to police officers “Corrupt Connections to Private Investigators” Obtain information that medical data has been “obtained by deception” and that bank accounts and financial information were accessed “by illicit means and manipulation”.
When this procedure was announced in early October, the group disagreed “quite clearly these grotesque slanders that appear to be nothing more than a planned and orchestrated attempt to embroil the Mail’s headlines in the wiretapping scandal surrounding 30-year-old articles.”
Several scandals in the past
The British tabloids had been rocked around a decade ago by several scandals of illegal wiretapping of Princes William and Harry, which had been practiced since the early 2000s, but excitement had peaked in the summer of 2011 when the tabloid News of the World had been listening to the voicemail of a school girl who disappeared and was eventually found dead, Milly Dowler.
The revelations had led to the disastrous shutdown of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday tabloid, who had paid Milly Dowler’s family £2million in a friendly settlement.
While many personalities have sued tabloids after being bugged, this is the first time such lawsuits have been leveled at the Chron’s editor.
A month before Karl’s coronation
Prince Harry’s surprise appearance in London, which is an exceptional visit to the UK, comes just over a month before the King’s coronation on May 6th. Relegated to the United States after the fall of the monarchy in 2020, Harry and his wife Meghan were invited to the ceremony but have not yet publicly announced whether they will accept the invitation.
The return of the ‘Sussexes’ to Britain to attend the coronation has been the subject of much speculation in the British media in recent months after the couple viciously attacked the royal family.
After a documentary aired on Netflix in December, Harry released his controversial memoir The Substitute in early January, in which he recounts his drug- and alcohol-ridden teenage years and the breakdown in his relationship with his father, King Charles III’s brother William.
The king was originally scheduled to be away from Britain on Monday and Tuesday for a state visit to France, which was postponed due to the social climate and sometimes violent protests surrounding President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms.