Latest hearing in Duke of Sussex legal claim against Mail publisher due to begin

A further hearing in the Duke of Sussex’s High Court claim against the publisher of the Daily Mail is set to begin on Tuesday.

Harry and several other high-profile individuals, including Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Sir Elton John, his husband David Furnish, actresses Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley, and politician Sir Simon Hughes, are bringing legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).

They have accused the publisher of allegedly carrying out or commissioning unlawful activities such as hiring private investigators to place listening devices inside cars, “blagging” private records, burglaries to order and accessing and recording private phone conversations.

ANL firmly denies the allegations and is defending the legal action, previously describing the claims as “lurid” and “simply preposterous”.

The two-day hearing before Mr Justice Nicklin is expected to begin on Tuesday, and comes just days after Harry lost a Court of Appeal battle over his security arrangements while in the UK.

It is expected to deal with several preliminary issues in the claims, with no findings yet made in respect of the allegations.

Baroness Doreen Lawrence arriving at the Royal Courts of Justice for an earlier hearing in the case / Credit: Gareth Fuller/PA

In November 2023, Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed ANL’s bid for a ruling in its favour before a trial, after the publisher’s lawyers argued the claims were brought “far too late”.

Then, in March last year, Government ministers ruled that confidential documents from the Leveson Inquiry relating to Daily Mail records of payments to private investigators could be disclosed in the duke’s claim, after changing restrictions on the documents put in place during the inquiry.

Then-culture secretary Lucy Frazer and then-home secretary James Cleverly said in a joint statement that they had altered the restrictions “for the purposes of the legal proceedings” as the “public interest in promoting the just, speedy and economic resolution of the proceedings outweighs the countervailing public interests”.

At a hearing in November last year, the court heard from ANL’s lawyers that Baroness Lawrence was “alerted” to a potential legal claim by a text from the Duke of Sussex in January 2022, and met lawyers Harry had been working with a few days later.

The trial of the claims could be held in 2026 and last up to nine weeks, with Mr Justice Nicklin and Judge David Cook stating in a ruling in January that the two sides’ proposed budgets – totalling more than £38.8 million – were “manifestly excessive and therefore disproportionate”.

Harry was previously awarded £140,600 in damages after suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), and received “substantial damages” after settling a claim against News Group Newspapers (NGN) in January this year.