Ahead of press lawsuit, expert appears to warn Prince Harry he would “achieve very little” in his lawsuit against a giant media empire.
His case pitted him against that of media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The Sun and the deceased World News.
He alleged that people working for the tabloids from 1996 to 2011 illegally snooped into his private life, including obtaining the flight records of his ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy.
But Professor Tim Luckhurst, principal of South College at Britain’s University of Durham, said News week“I think he’s spending a lot of money to achieve very little.”
His comments come as the Duke of Sussexx and former British lawmaker Tom Watson become the latest survivors of their lawsuits against News Group newspapers after more than 1,000 cases were settled in the wiretapping scandal.
However, Harry had already argued that his motive was the truth, but not money. “Seeing all this evidence only now is infuriating,” he said in his 2023 witness statement.
“Knowing that we were being followed, bugged and hacked while trying to have a private relationship, just to [publisher] NGN could print an article and sell a newspaper, it’s mind-blowing,” continued the forty-year-old.
“Methods that should, at best, be reserved for proper investigative journalism that examines stories of public interest have been used on normal, innocent people, and to what end?” he noted.
“Those responsible should be incarcerated in my opinion because there is no justification and it is, frankly, criminal. Any assertion or suggestion that senior officials were not aware of what their employees/journalists were doing is obviously a lie,” Harry concluded.
