The prince is getting his day in court as he takes on the tabloids that scrutinized his every move for years, even hacking his phone.
When Prince Harry takes the stand in a phone-hacking case on Tuesday, it will mark another milestone in his singular journey: He will be the first senior royal to testify in court since 1891, when the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, testified in the case of a man accused of cheating at a game of baccarat.
Yet for Harry, the court appearance is, in many ways, just another chapter in what has become a life of litigation.
Harry and his wife, Meghan, are plaintiffs in no fewer than seven cases against the British tabloids and other media organizations for phone hacking and other violations of their privacy. Harry has also filed two claims against Britain’s Home Office related to the loss of his police protection during trips to his home country.
As the cases grind through the legal system, Harry’s visits are now as likely to be tied to courtroom dates as to royal ceremonies like the coronation of his father, King Charles III, which he attended last month. On Monday, Harry arrived from Los Angeles to testify in a lawsuit against Mirror Group Newspapers, which he accused of hacking his cellphone more than a decade ago.
Before the coronation, the last time he came was in March to appear in court, alongside the pop star Elton John, in a case against the publisher of the Daily Mail on charges of tapping his cellphone. He is also suing Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers for hacking and other privacy violations.
For Harry, who now largely supports himself, the litigation has been expensive and time-consuming. People who know him say he did not expect, when he brought the suits, that they would drag on for so many years. Going to war against the tabloids has not helped his image in Britain, where his popularity has already been tarnished by his bitter split with his father and older brother, William.
But the court appearances do give him a platform to press what he has cast as one of his life’s missions: Curbing the excesses of the tabloids, which he and Meghan have accused of upending people’s lives “for no good reason, other than the fact that salacious gossip boosts advertising revenue.”
“He is taking action over alleged illegality, alleged abuse of power,” said Peter Hunt, a former royal correspondent for the BBC. “That is quite a courageous move, which is not an adjective often seen next to the name Harry.
