Prince Harry Arrives at Court for Tabloid Trial After Judge's Scolding

Prince Harry has arrived at London's Royal Courts of Justice to begin the second day of a trial regarding his lawsuit against tabloid publishers Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN). This concerns historic allegations of phone-hacking and other forms of illegal information-gathering.

Harry is suing the publishers of Britain's Daily Mirror and Sunday People over stories written between 1996 and 2011, the source information for which the prince says was obtained illegally. Many include details about his relationship with former girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, as well as his late mother, Princess Diana, and brother, Prince William.

Harry's case has been brought together with a group of other high-profile figures. His has been selected as one of a sample of four to be taken to trial. The prince will take the historically significant step of giving evidence in court, making him the first senior royal to do so in more than 130 years.

Harry arrived at the court building, passing a bank of press photographers. It was his first public appearance since he experienced a "near-catastrophic" paparazzi car chase with wife, Meghan Markle, and her mother following an awards ceremony in New York last month.

The royal party had been attending the 2023 Women of Vision Awards at the Ziegfeld Theatre in Midtown Manhattan on May 16 when their car was followed by paparazzi. The chase through the city was said to have lasted for two hours.

Though Harry and Meghan were unharmed, their spokesperson announced afterwards that: "While being a public figure comes with a level of interest from the public, it should never come at the cost of anyone's safety."

Harry faced a rebuke from Judge Sir Timothy Fancourt on Monday, after the prince failed to appear in court for the first day of the trial, despite being expected to do so. Harry's legal team said that he had arrived in London late on Sunday. He had been celebrating his daughter, Princess Lilibet's, second birthday at home in California.

Prior to the trial, Harry saw a positive turn for his case when MGN admitted one case of wrongdoing against the prince during a round of hearings. Journalists "for whom the Defendant [MGN] was responsible instructed private investigators to unlawfully obtain private information about [Prince Harry]." However, MGN denied a number of other allegations and all suggestions that it engaged in the hacking of cell phones.

Among the testimony given during the preliminary hearings was an account from biographer and royal journalist, Omid Scobie. He said that a vocal critic of Harry's, TV personality Piers Morgan, had been aware of phone-hacking while editor of the Daily Mirror.

In court filings, Scobie added that he was been party to a conversation in 2002 where Morgan was informed a story regarding pop-star Kylie Minogue had been obtained through voice mails. Scobie said he had been instructed how to hack cell phones while working at MGN title the Sunday People.

Scobie added that he did not engage in any hacking of voicemails while working at either title. Morgan has previously said: "I've never hacked a phone. I've never told anyone to hack a phone."

During the opening arguments of the trial, Harry's legal representative, David Sherborne, told the court that no aspect of the royal's childhood and later life had been free from press intrusion. Sherborne added, per the BBC, that the prince sought justice for any illegal acts made against him but that he did not have a "vendetta against the press."

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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