A complete timeline of Prince Harry's legal battle with the Sun
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Prince Harry’s legal action against News Group Newspapers (NGN), the publisher of the Sun newspaper, has begun. The lawsuit accuses the publisher of gathering unlawful information. The Duke of Sussex is one of two claimants, the other is former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson.
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This claim is separate from the phone hacking case Prince Harry brought against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), heard by the high court in 2023. That time the court ruled in favour of Prince Harry and decided that "widespread and habitual" phone hacking was carried out by MGN journalists between 1996 and 2011. MGN agreed to pay "a substantial additional sum" in damages to the Duke of Sussex, along with his legal costs and a sum of £140,600 already awarded to him by the judges.
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Here is a closer look at the moments that led to the current legal case, which began on Tuesday January 21, dating back to 2005. Buckingham Palace sparked a police inquiry with a complaint that Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday tabloid, News of the World, had reported that Prince William had a knee injury.
The Palace claimed that the information for the story must have came from a voicemail that was hacked. Two News of the World employees, private investigator Glenn Mulcaire and royal editor Clive Goodman, were sentenced to six and four months each for hacking the phones of royal aides to listen to messages left by William and others.
