Prince Harry v the Daily Mail

Litigants brace for fierce battle as trial begins

- Geraldine McKelvie

This morning, Prince Harry's legal war with the Daily Mail, one of the British media's most formidable forces, will finally come to trial, in court 76 of the high court in London.

The prince is joined in his action by some of the most recognisable figures in British life: the singer and songwriter Elton John and his husband, David Furnish; the actors Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost; Doreen Lawrence, a Labour peer whose son Stephen was murdered in a racist attack; and the former politician Simon Hughes, who once ran to lead the Liberal Democrats.

Their opponent is the publisher of Britain's bestselling newspaper, with its long-serving editor-in-chief, Paul Dacre, expected to give evidence.

The allegations against the Daily Mail and its stablemate, the Mail on Sunday, are grave. Harry and his fellow claimants allege that, as well as intercepting voicemails, the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday also tapped landlines, paid corrupt police officers, blagged medical records and even bugged celebrities' homes.

The titles' publisher, Associated Newspapers, has described the claims as "preposterous" and an "affront to the hardworking journalists whose reputations and integrity ... are wrongly traduced".

Harry's anger at the press is deep-rooted: his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash in 1997 while she was being pursued by paparazzi in Paris. More recently, he has been critical of its treatment of his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.

In 2021, a judge ruled that the Mail on Sunday had breached the duchess's privacy by publishing an extract of a letter she had written to her estranged father, Thomas Markle.

The prince's decision to take on the tabloids has not been without personal and financial cost.

For him, it is a point of principle, one that may have contributed to the fracturing of his relationship with the royal family.