Harry's war with the press is back in court. But this time it's different

It might feel as though we're back in familiar territory - the Duke of Sussex about to make claims in a London court alleging that newspapers used unlawful methods to gather information.

But in many ways, Prince Harry appears to be in a different place in his life. He now seems to be more about reconciliation with his family rather than recrimination.

When the case against the Daily Mail's publisher begins on Monday, Prince Harry will be energetically fighting his corner against the press, yet he no longer seems to be fighting the rest of the world too.

This is Prince Harry's third major court battle accusing newspaper groups of unlawful behaviour, appearing as a witness in this civil case against Associated Newspapers, alongside other claimants including Sir Elton John, Liz Hurley and Baroness Lawrence, campaigning mother of murdered Stephen Lawrence.

The publishers of the Daily Mail have rejected the allegations as "preposterous" and are ready for a strong defence of their journalism.

But the backdrop for Prince Harry feels different from when he gave evidence against the Mirror group in 2023. That was the same year as his no-holds-barred memoir Spare and a year after the Harry and Meghan Netflix documentary, both bristling with controversial views on the Royal Family.

His successful court battle against the Mirror was huge news in itself, as the biggest royal appearance in a witness box of modern times.

He didn't have problems with the questions, but he cut an isolated figure, with no company in the courtroom except his legal team and security.

But, ahead of his latest court case, the mood music feels different: he's now building bridges rather than blowing them up.

In his BBC interview last May, Prince Harry talked about wanting to end the rift with this his family, saying: "There's no point continuing to fight any more, life is precious."

And in September, he met his father, King Charles, for their first face-to-face time together in 19 months. It was a sign of improving relationships.

There's also a review of his security when he's in the UK, which could resolve another barrier to Harry's visits. Next year will bring his Invictus Games to Birmingham, his biggest event in the UK since his acrimonious departure in 2020.

Alongside this sense of a growing rapprochement with his family is the unspoken expectation that Harry is keeping his head down for a while, avoiding bombshell interviews, not rocking the royal boat.

So he won't be meeting his father during this court case, with the King wanting to keep a distance from such high-profile legal proceedings. And his brother Prince William has engagements in Scotland.

Royal commentator Richard Palmer describes this as "Harry's final tilt at the national newspapers he blames for ruining his life".

"His father and the Royal Household would clearly have preferred this trial not to go ahead and are distancing themselves. They'll be hoping Harry doesn't try to drag the King or other family members into the evidence.

"His hopes of a reconciliation may be hit if he says the wrong thing so I'm sure that will be weighing on his mind."

But he adds: "It's interesting that, as far as we know, he's not planning to do any interviews to publicise this case. He is in a different place now, not so angry and eager to try to mend fences with his family."

Royal commentator Prof Pauline Maclaran also thinks Harry is likely to keep a low profile "given his wish to rebuild bridges, certainly with his father and with reports that he is hoping to have him at the opening of the Invictus Games".

"He might have learnt that less is more where the royals are concerned.

"So while he will still be pursuing his quest against Associated Newspapers, I think he will keep out of the limelight," she adds.

Monday's trial may be his last court campaign against the papers, but Prince Harry must know it is not going to be his easiest.

Unlike other newspaper groups, The Mail and Mail on Sunday were never caught up in the phone-hacking scandal, or the investigation of illegal payments to public officials, more than a decade ago.

The Mail's editor, Paul Dacre, told the Leveson Inquiry into press standards in 2012 he had carried out a "major internal inquiry" and was "confident" there were no cases of phone hacking by his newspapers.

Yes, his journalists had used private investigators with databases to legally obtain phone numbers, so they didn't have to leaf through phone books. That ended, he told the inquiry, when one of the investigators admitted breaches of data protection.

Fast forward to October 2022 and, out of the blue, six very well-known people accused Associated Newspapers of not just accessing their voicemail messages and using private investigators to "blag" their personal information, but also bugging phones and aggressive surveillance techniques.

To cap it all, one of them was Baroness Doreen Lawrence. The Mail had strongly backed her campaign in the 1990s to bring her son Stephen's killers to justice.

Now, she claimed a senior reporter had tasked investigators with phone-tapping and bugging to get information for stories.

It was, in the lengthening history of allegations against the press, a bombshell.

In this trial, the claimants - Baroness Lawrence, Prince Harry, the actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost Law, Sir Elton John, his husband David Furnish, and the former Liberal Democrat minister Sir Simon Hughes, who joined the action at a later stage - must prove their privacy was breached by journalists working for Associated Newspapers.

The first challenge: there is a six-year time limit for claiming breaches of privacy, starting from when it happened, and some of the allegations go back decades. To get around this rule, they have to show they didn't know they had a potential case until more recently.

Associated alleges that to achieve this, friendly journalists published articles on fringe news websites to create artificial "watershed moments" when it could be claimed the victims had "discovered" the truth about what the papers had done. The other side strongly denies that. The judge will decide.

Some of the evidence they hoped to deploy has come from the private investigators themselves. Some have been paid for information. Not a deal-breaker in the civil courts, but the judge will have to consider whether it damages the credibility of their evidence.

There have also been dramatic rows behind the scenes between researchers working for the claimants, and the private investigators they hoped to turn into star witnesses.

One, Gavin Burrows, appeared to have signed a long statement detailing what he knew about the use of illegal methods, but later claimed his signature had been forged. He is expected to give evidence.

Prince Harry's legal team had also hoped to prove the general claim that unlawful methods had been "widespread or habitual" at the Associated newspapers, partly because reporters had joined from other publications where it was also routine and were using the same private investigators.

After all, what were the chances the competitive Mail and Mail on Sunday hadn't used unlawful techniques for getting information which were widely practised by the Sun, the News of the World, the Mirror and the Sunday Mirror?

But the no-nonsense judge presiding over these often ill-tempered proceedings is desperate to stop them turning into a "public inquiry". Last year, he ruled that he wouldn't accept these "generic" claims.

In short, the big seven must make their case, allegation by allegation. Team Harry begins this trial with one hand tied behind its back.

Unless a settlement is reached, as happened in the case against News Group Newspapers, Prince Harry will be in the High Court pursuing his claim against what he sees as the unfair and dishonest excesses of press intrusion. It's a cause that is close to his heart.

Once the case is over, sources close to Harry suggest his priority will be supporting his charitable causes and there are currently no more court cases against the media in the pipeline.

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