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LONDON, April 28 (AP) — A lawyer for the publisher of The Sun tabloid said in Prince Harry’s own words that his phone-hacking lawsuit should be dismissed.
Lawyer Anthony Hudson said emails from the Duke of Sussex to the chief royal spokesman showed he was well aware of the allegations against the publisher and he could have brought the case in time.
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Hudson said Harry first became aware that one of his voicemails had been intercepted in 2006 and knew he was filing a claim in 2012.
But the prince only started pushing Buckingham Palace in late 2017 and early 2018 to pressure the British newspaper arm of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire to apologize for hacking his phone.
Court records show the Duke of Sussex emailed the chief royal spokesman in February 2018: “An ultimatum needs to be delivered, otherwise this institution and everything it stands for will be a laughing stock.”
After three days of hearings in the High Court, Hudson asked a judge to dismiss the hacking lawsuit brought by Harry and actor Hugh Grant on the grounds that they had sufficient knowledge to bring their claims within the six-year time limit.
“Insinuating that they could not have started … the claims they made later are completely hopeless, untrue and fanciful,” Hudson said.
Judge Timothy Fancourt said he would make a ruling at a later date.
Lawyer David Sherborne argued that both men knew the former News Of The World, owned by Murdoch, had been hacked by a rogue reporter, but that it wasn’t until 2011 that it broke out After a bigger scandal that led to the newspaper being outed, they realized how wide the Intercept’s business was.
Sherborne said they were blocked from prying eyes by another Murdoch newspaper, The Sun, because executives at the News Corp newspaper withheld evidence and lied. He argued that the cover-up created an exception to the time limit for filing the lawsuit.
Sherborne also argued that Harry was unable to sue because of a “secret agreement” the royal family had with Murdoch’s company. Harry said the so-called agreement was designed to protect the royals from having to testify and face embarrassing evidence.
Harry said he was told the lawsuit could not be brought because an agreement approved by the late Queen Elizabeth II called for News Corp to reach a settlement and apologize to the royal family after settling other lawsuits in the voicemail hacking scandal.
Fancourt said he was troubled by what appeared to be a “factual inconsistency” between Harry’s claim that he did not know about the prosecution before 2019 and the prince’s statement that he would have filed the lawsuit in 2012 if there hadn’t been a secret agreement.
But Sherborne said he didn’t have enough knowledge in 2012 to make the claim he ultimately made because he was only aware of one hack.
When News Corp seemed to be stagnating, Harry had enough and filed a lawsuit against the company in 2019. It was one of three phone-hacking cases he took against a British tabloid publisher.
News Corp denied there was a secret agreement and said The Sun “takes no responsibility or makes any admissions to the allegations”.
Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the alleged agreement. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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