Prince William Settled Phone Hacking Claim Against Murdoch Empire

Prince William settled a phone hacking claim against Rupert Murdoch's media empire out of court following a "secret agreement" with the palace, according to a filing in Prince Harry's lawsuit.

Harry is suing News Group Newspapers [NGN] on allegations of voicemail interception and other illegal newsgathering techniques dating back as far as 1994 to 1995 when he was 10 years old.

However, the publisher wants the case thrown out by a judge at the High Court in London on the grounds that the Duke of Sussex filed it too late.

In response, Harry's lawyers said the delay was down to a secret agreement with the palace "whereby members of the Royal Family, including [Prince Harry] (and his brother, HRH Prince William), agreed to wait to have their claims dealt with until the conclusion of the" phone hacking litigations.

The document suggests Queen Elizabeth II authorized Prince Harry to pursue a claim in 2017.

Prince Harry wrote in a statement seen by Newsweek: "My brother and I were also told by either the institution's solicitor, Gerrard Tyrrell of Harbottle & Lewis, or someone else from the institution that there was no possibility of either of us bringing a claim against NGN for phone hacking at that time.

"The rationale behind this was that a secret agreement had been reached between the institution and senior executives at NGN whereby members of the Royal Family would bring phone hacking claims only at the conclusion of the Mobile Telephone Voicemail Interception Litigation and at that stage the claims would be admitted or settled with an apology."

Harry suggested the reason for the secrecy might arise from the "tampon-gate" scandal, in which King Charles III and Queen Camilla's private intimate conversations were published in the media.

Famously, Charles joked he might be reincarnated as a Tampax after earlier saying: "Oh, God. I'll just live inside your trousers or something. It would be much easier!"

Harry wrote: "The reason for this was to avoid the situation where a member of the Royal Family would have to sit in the witness box and recount the specific details of the private and highly sensitive voicemails that had been intercepted by [News of the World journalist] Clive Goodman.

"The institution was incredibly nervous about this and wanted to avoid at all costs the sort of reputational damage that it had suffered in 1993 when The Sun and another tabloid had unlawfully obtained and published details of an intimate telephone conversation that took place between my father and step-mother in 1989, while he was still married to my mother."

Harry said William's claim was settled in 2020, which was after the Duke of Sussex had already filed his own litigation in September 2019.

The court filing reads: "As [Prince Harry] explains, his brother, HRH William, Prince of Wales, similarly brought a claim against NGN which it settled for a very large sum
of money in 2020."

The filing added: "It is important to bear in mind that in responding to this bid by NGN to prevent his claims going to trial, [Prince Harry] has had to make public the details of this Secret Agreement, as well as the fact that his brother, His Royal Highness, Prince William, has recently settled his claim against NGN behind the scenes, having had to hold off bringing a claim for years for the same reasons as [Prince Harry]."

In some of the court filings, it is unclear to what extent the agreement referenced related only to the News of the World, well known to have hacked both royals.

Harry's case also alleges phone hacking at The Sun, which the publisher has always denied took place.

Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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