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“A person should not just be able to buy special police services,” Prince Harry was told last week after losing a legal challenge over the UK Home Office’s decision to not allow the government to pay for his security when visiting Britain. The man that begged for the world to see him as “Just Harry, drop the prince,” had to be reminded that the Metropolitan Police was not for hire, and that privately-funded protection would undermine public confidence in London’s police force.
This is just one of the ongoing court battles that Harry has on his plate at the moment. It seems that tending to his chickens, being hired on as “Chief Impact Officer” at a hippy-dippy wellness company BetterUp and taking part in his worldwide privacy tour is less time consuming than one might think. In four years, Meghan and Harry have filed at least seven lawsuits against media organizations and one against the British government.
While most are well aware of Harry’s hatred for the press, particularly British hacks, few have cared enough to delve into all seven cases. Not that the media is giving them much airtime. Some allege the lack of coverage is part of a mainstream media cover-up of their supposed crimes against the former royals. Cockburn thinks the likelier explanation is that the British public are so exhausted of the prince that they would rather read about literally anything else.
It started in 2019 when Harry won substantial damages and accepted an apology from Splash News and Picture Agency after they admitted to taking aerial photographs of his home in Oxfordshire. In July 2020, the couple settled with Celebrity Photo Agency X17 after paparazzi used drones and helicopters to take photos of their son, Archie, at their California home. Next, Meghan won against Associated Newspapers in 2021 after the Mail on Sunday printed a letter she had written to her father in 2018. The other four cases are ongoing.
Harry is part of a group that has come together to fight various British papers for unlawful information gathering. Associated Newspapers Limited, which publishes the Daily Mail, and News Group Newspapers, which publishes the Sun, are being taken to court by the Duke of Sussex, British singer Cheryl Cole, the estate of the late George Michael and British actress Elizabeth Hurley. In a case against the Mirror Group, the prince alleges that journalists hacked phones to dig up dirt on him and his wife. His legal team initially pointed to 144 articles that they said backed up their case, but only thirty-three will be considered in the trial. The editor of the publication at the time was Piers Morgan, a vocal critic of Prince Harry and Meghan.
The prince may have bitten off more than he could chew, as he is already reportedly facing a legal bill of more than $600,000 after the judge ruled against him in the security case last week. A Freedom of Information request uncovered that the case also cost the British taxpayer around $371,000. Not to mention the cash Harry has been shelling out to jet-set back and forth to London for the media-related trials. The Netflix money seems to be holding out, Cockburn supposes.
As the gloves come off in Harry’s various fights with the press, ugly details from both sides will be uncovered. A High Court judge has already questioned “troubling factual inconsistencies” in Harry’s witness statement, and as more time goes on, other members of the royal family are dragged into the mess. It is of no surprise that Harry is taking on the hacks, but at what cost?
Then there’s the American trial, which tangentially involves Harry: the Heritage Foundation is taking the Department of Homeland Security to court in DC next week in an attempt to unseal the Duke of Sussex’s immigration records. Harry has admitted using cocaine, psychedelic mushrooms and cannabis in the past — and any foreign national applying for a US visa is required to answer questions about past drug abuse. Could the conservative think tank seeking to “unite the right” end up getting the prince’s documents revoked and see him despatched from America’s shores? Cockburn would hate to see him shipped back to Canada…
