Prince Harry’s libel case against the Mail on Sunday newspaper to go to trial: judge

A British High Court judge has made a major ruling in Prince Harry's legal fight against a UK news organisation.

Prince Harry first appeared at the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain's High Court, in March. Picture: Justin Tallis / AFP

The Duke of Sussex’s libel case against the Mail on Sunday newspaper over an article about his security arrangements must go to trial, a High Court judge has ruled, rejecting his bid to have the publisher’s defence thrown out.

King Charles’ younger son sued Associated Newspapers Limited last year over an article revealing he tried to keep secret a legal fight with the British government over his publicly funded police protection after he quit royal duties saying it was “an attack on his honesty and integrity”.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex libel case against the Mail on Sunday newspaper over an article about his security arrangements must go to trial. Picture: Daniel LEAL / AFP

The newspaper article claimed the duke had lied to the public about his readiness to pay for private policing himself.

The Duke applied to have the newspaper group’s defence thrown out, but Judge Matthew Nicklin refused to strike out the defence saying it had a real chance of succeeding.

“The Duke of Sussex’s claim will now go through its remaining pre-trial phases and, unless resolved in some other way, to a trial at some point in 2024,” the judge said in a written ruling.

In its defence, the Mail on Sunday is hoping to claim Harry had made a false claim over his willingness to pay for police protection in the UK.

At a hearing in March, the High Court heard Harry’s bid to strike out ANL’s “honest opinion” defence or grant Judgement in his favour on it.

Justin Rushbrooke KC, for Harry, had said in written submissions the defence to the libel claim “rests upon two probably false premises” relating to a press statement.

The statement, released when the duke first launched the legal challenge last January, read: “The duke first offered to pay personally for UK police protection for himself and his family in January of 2020 at Sandringham.

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan left the UK after a falling out with the royal family. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

“That offer was dismissed. He remains willing to cover the cost of security, as not to impose on the British taxpayer.”

Harry claims that the February 2020 decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) to change the degree of his personal protection was “unlawful and unfair”.

In a Home Office document prepared for a February 2022 preliminary hearing, the department said his offer of private funding “notably was not advanced to Ravec” at the time of the duke’s visit in June 2021, or in any pre-action correspondence.

The Mail on Sunday article claimed this was “a crushing rebuttal to Harry’s initial public statement that implied he had always been willing to foot the bill”.

Rushbrooke KC told the court it was “absolutely obvious” that the press statement “makes no claim that the claimant (the duke) made an offer to Ravec or the Home Office or that his judicial review proceedings were to challenge a refusal to accept it.”

Yet in his statement dismissing the Duke of Sussex’s bid Mr Justice Nicklin said there is a “real prospect” that ANL will succeed in showing that there was a misleading description of the issues in the judicial review claim.