Prince Harry will become the first senior British royal to give evidence in court for 130 years when he testifies next week in his lawsuit against a newspaper group he accuses of phone tapping.
Harry, 38, will testify at London’s High Court as part of the case he and more than 100 other celebrities and high-profile figures have brought against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), publisher of the Daily Mirror Sunday Mirror and Sunday People.
It will be the first time a senior royal has given evidence since Edward VII testified as a witness as part of a divorce case in 1870, and 20 years later in a slander trial over a card game.
In his memoir and Netflix documentary series, Harry accused other senior royals of colluding with tabloid newspapers.
David Yelland, a senior communications adviser and a former editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Sun tabloid newspaper – a publication Harry is also suing – warned: “These cases are often a case of mutually assured destruction. I don’t think anyone will get out looking great.”
More than 100 people are suing MGN, with Harry and three others selected as test cases.
The trial, which began last month, heard that MGN journalists or private investigators commissioned by them carried out phone-hacking on an “industrial scale”, and committed other unlawful acts to obtain information about the prince and the other claimants.
Harry accuses his family and their aides of being complicit in leaking negative stories to protect or enhance their reputation. The palace has not commented.
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