by Alice WatkinsThis week it was reported that Prince Harry’s lawsuit against News Group Newspapers (NGN), publisher of The Sun, will be allowed to proceed to a full trial in the High Court. It comes after Prince Harry accused the newspaper group of unlawfully obtaining his private information – between the mid 1990’s and 2016 - through a variety of means that included phone-hacking, blagging (obtaining private information by deception), and the instruction of Private Investigators to carry out illegal inquiries. While the High Court Judge ruled that Prince Harry was too late to include allegations of voicemail interception (“phone-hacking”), he rejected NGN’s attempts to prevent the rest of the claim proceeding. He has therefore allowed litigation to proceed on Prince Harry’s claims about unlawful intrusions – such as the alleged use of private investigators and the illegal stealing of personal data - by the News of the World and The Sun.

The news is a major defeat and strategic setback for one of the largest newspaper publishers in the country. Of course, they don’t want you to know that: NGN’s owners, News UK, have spent the last few days aggressively trumpeting the decision as a “significant“ victory for NGN. But it’s important to remember that Mr Justice Fancourt has not found that Prince Harry was not hacked by The Sun newspaper or the now defunct News of the World – only that any claim he may have had is out of time.

We should also remember that hacking phones and stealing personal data are not only illegal but have potentially traumatic consequences for victims. We know that phone hacking was widespread in the newspaper industry. How the practice persisted and was covered up for so long was set to be investigated in Part Two of the Leveson Inquiry. But in 2018, instead of getting to the bottom of who authorised these illegal practices – and why multiple police investigations failed to reveal anything untoward - the Government instead chose to turn its back on the thousands of victims of press abuse, the vast majority of whom were ordinary members of the public. It caved in to extensive press lobbying by cancelling the second part of the Leveson inquiry, which was designed precisely to investigate those questions. The high profile litigation against NGN is significant because Prince Harry has the financial means to pursue these claims. Most victims can’t afford to reject an offer of settlement from NGN, because – even if they win at trial - they risk having to pay both parties’ legal bills if their award at the end of the trial is less than the pre-trial settlement offer. That is how News UK - by paying out hundreds of millions in damages and legal fees to settle claims - has prevented any of the approximately 1,000 claims reaching a trial over the last decade. There are 100 claims remaining unsettled in this current wave of cases, all of which relate to voicemail interception, data blagging and payments to private investigators. Importantly, all these claims include serious allegations of concealment (including perjury) and destruction of evidence - amounting in some cases to perverting the course of justice. In this week’s Judgment, the phone hacking element of Prince Harry’s claim has been struck out. But the fact that his claim has been reduced has no effect on the scope and strength of the allegations of concealment and destruction. The outcome of Prince Harry’s litigation against the publisher remains to be seen: his alleged claims of blagging will proceed to trial in January 2024 or January 2025. But what the claims do tell us is that the case for a thorough investigation into the scale, scope and origins of widespread unlawful and unethical practices in the press is stronger than ever. This government has demonstrated its cowardice in the face of our newspapers’ systematic abuse of power. There is now a clear opportunity for opposition parties – who will form the next government – to demonstrate their determination to stand up for the victims of press abuse by committing to the reinstatement of Part Two of the Leveson inquiry.