A group of seven high-profile UK figures, including Prince Harry, Elton John, and Liz Hurley, have accused Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) of invading their privacy.
ANL owns news outlets including the Daily Mail UK and Metro.
The civil trial is expected to run for nine weeks. It is the last of three court cases Prince Harry has been involved with against UK tabloids since 2023.
Here’s what you need to know.
Claimants
There are seven claimants in the case: Prince Harry, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, former politician Sir Simon Hughes, and actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost.
It also includes British Jamaican anti-racism campaigner Doreen Lawrence. In 1993, a group of white teenagers killed Lawrence’s 18-year-old son Stephen in an unprovoked, racially-motivated attack. No charges were laid at the time.
Lawrence’s activism led to an inquiry into racism in the police, and the 2012 conviction of two men for Stephen’s murder.
Case
The seven claimants allege ANL collected information about them illegally, and misused it.
The alleged time period is from “at least 1993” until 2011, “and even continued beyond until 2018.”
The claimants accuse ANL of “unlawful information gathering” techniques, such as intercepting voicemails, using private investigators, gathering information by deception, and tapping phone calls. This information was then allegedly published.
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The BBC reports London’s High Court heard a statement from Prince Harry saying he felt “paranoid beyond belief” by ANL’s alleged “grave breaches of privacy”.
Barrister David Sherborne said there were 14 articles that allegedly included unlawfully obtained information.
Sir Elton John and Furnish accused ANL of “stealing” their son’s birth certificate.
Response
The BBC reported ANL’s barrister, Antony White, called John and Furnish’s claim “utterly baseless.”
White said Prince Harry’s network “was known to be a good source of leaks or disclosure of information to the media about what he got up to in his private life.”
Addressing articles with information gathered through alleged tapping, White said ANL “is able to call a witness or witnesses to explain how the article was in fact sourced.”
Other cases
In December 2023, Prince Harry won a case against Mirror Group Newspapers.
From a list of 33 articles submitted as evidence, the court found 15 included information obtained by phone hacking or other illegal practices.
Prince Harry also alleged NGN – the Rupert Murdoch-owned publisher of The Sun and now defunct News of the World – published stories with information gathered by phone hackings between 1996 and 2011.
The case was settled in January 2025, with no admission of fault from NGN.
