British Prince and former MP Tom Watson is suing News Group Newspapers for alleged wrongdoing.
The start of Prince Harry’s legal battle against Rupert Murdoch’s British news group has been delayed at London’s High Court amid chaos over last-minute settlement discussions between the two sides.
Harry and former senior MP Tom Watson are suing News Group Newspapers over alleged wrongdoing by journalists and private investigators working for their newspapers, the Sun and the defunct News of the World, from 1996 to 2011.
At what was supposed to be the start of an eight-week trial, Harry and Watson’s lawyer, David Sherborne, asked Judge Timothy Fancourt on Tuesday for more time to continue talking.
Fancourt granted the request but said it had to be a “last resort” and that proceedings would be launched if no agreement was reached.
Sherborne subsequently asked for more time to negotiate, supported by NGN’s lawyer Anthony Hudson, who cited “difficulties with the time difference” in possibly referring Harry, who lives in California.
Fancourt said he didn’t think the court filings contained anything that would have an impact on settlement attempts, to which Hudson said “there are other things that will happen when the trial starts that will have a very significant impact on the dynamics of the settlement.”
The judge declined to give the parties more time and said some of the two sides’ lawyers could continue to discuss a possible deal while the trial began.
When Hudson asked him to hold a brief hearing in private, Fancourt replied, “I’m not going to start secret hearings about what’s going on.”
The judge also refused leave to appeal. He then left court, to leave the parties to appeal directly to the Court of Appeal, a move he acknowledged meant he was likely to achieve his goals anyway.
Hundreds of settlements
Prince said his mission was not money but to get to the truth, after other plaintiffs settled cases to avoid risking multimillion-dollar legal bills that could be imposed even if they won in court, but rejected NGN’s offer.
“One of the main reasons to end this is accountability, because I’m the last person who can actually achieve this,” Harry, who is due to appear as a witness himself in February, said last month.
NGN has paid out hundreds of millions of pounds to victims of phone hacking and other illegal information gathering by the News of the World, and has settled more than 1,300 claims involving celebrities, politicians, famous sports figures and people associated with them or major events .
Harry’s legal team said in earlier court documents that his older brother Prince William, the heir to the throne, settled his own case against NGN in 2020 for a “very large sum of money”.
Although Murdoch closed the News of the World in 2011, the publisher has always rejected claims that there was any illegal activity at the Sun and says it will fully defend the claims.
