One phrase reveals major problem in Prince Harry’s blockbuster court case

Even before Prince Harry has uttered a single word in his latest blockbuster court case, things have already – yes, already – hit the skids.

The best thing that can be said after the outing of Prince Harry’s high stakes, high-dudgeon courtroom campaign against the British media is that at least this case doesn’t involve an illegal game of baccarat or a prince shagging a society gal, as was the case the last time a senior member of the royal family did a bit of noble sweating under oath in 1891.

That’s when Albert, Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, faced questions of an illicit card game – but Bertie, as he was known, was no stranger to the courtroom, having previously had to sensationally give evidence in the divorce of his lover Harriet Mourdant.

Harry is set to enter the witness box this week, and while Bertie’s great-great-great-grandson’s case might not involve illicit gambling or infidelity, even before Harry has uttered a word in court, things have already – yes, already – gone off the rails.

How off the rails? Did Harry leave the packed lunch his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex had provisioned him with on the plane? Did he get caught asking his high-profile barrister David Sherborne if he could play Candy Crush in the court?

Oh no. Harry just didn’t turn up.

Prince Harry’s barrister David Sherborne arrived at Britain's High Court – but the royal was a no-show. Picture: Daniel Leal/AFP

Earlier this year, during one of his myriad interviews to spruik his tell-all Spare, the duke said

that reforming the British press was his “life’s work.”

Currently, he is involved in court cases against three separate UK publishers including Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), owner of the Daily Mail, News Group Newspapers (NGN), owner of The Sun and the long-shuttered News of the World, and Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN). (NGN is owned by the same parent company as News Corp Australia, publisher of this masthead).

And yet, with that “work” really kicking off with a vengeance – with witnesses including Harry being called in the MGN case – his barrister David Sherborne was left to explain to the “obviously annoyed” judge why his star client was nowhere to be seen.

According to TheGuardian, when MGN’s lawyers “indicated they would speed through their opening arguments, Harry’s team admitted their client would not be ready in time – to the obvious annoyance of the judge”.

Mr Sherborne explained that the duke had only left California on Sunday night, having prioritised being at home for his daughter Princess Lilibet’s second birthday.

The high-priced King’s Counsel also argued that the King’s son (ah, irony, we meet again) is in “a different category from the three other claimants due to his travel and security arrangements”.

(The Guardian has reported that the 38-year-old “was still dealing with jet lag”).

Whatever the reason why Harry was not in court, Justice Fancourt “rebuked” the duke, the Telegraph reports, over the no-show – hardly a good start given the very person he has “annoyed” is the same bloke who will decide his case.

If the judge is not happy, I am simply confused.

Prince Harry skipped court for Lilibet’s birthday. Picture: Alexi Lubomirski/Handout/The Duke and Duchess of Sussex

For Harry, who has what is left of his public standing and a hell of a lot of money riding on this case, that he was not in court bright and early in a neatly pressed shirt is just … befuddling.

While his keen paternal desire to be there for Lili’s birthday is sweet and all, could he not have left on an earlier flight on Sunday? Or marked her big day on Saturday? It’s not as if toddlers have a keen sense of diary management.

Or maybe the key to understanding this situation lies in just two words – the fact that Harry thinks he is in a “different category”.

In fact, look back over the last few years and it is something of a recurring leitmotiv in the long and winding story of Harry and his regular foe, Life.

Let’s look at the evidence, m’lud.

In January 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex put out the Instagram post to end all Instagram posts, announcing they were done with being full-time working members of the royal family.

No, instead they would “carve out a progressive new role”, a sort of half-in, half-out model that had never been tried before. (They would also, they told followers, “continue to collaborate” with the late Queen, making it sound like the nonagenarian sovereign was some mid-level marketing manager eager to get their help on her next PowerPoint).

The only thing is that what has been revealed since then is that while the late Queen and now King Charles were aware the Sussexes were struggling and wanted to rejig things, nothing had been settled in terms of money, security or the specifics.

And yet the Sussexes had barrelled on, sharing that post even though no one with their own sceptre had signed off on the arrangements.

Go back to that January post and it reads as a wholly confident declaration from people who seemed to be labouring under the belief that they could and would get what they wanted.

Turns out that no matter their intention to have a “progressive new role”, Queen Elizabeth did not want to “collaborate” and put her small foot down. They could reportedly be “in” or they could be “out” in the eyes of Her late Majesty – no “different categories” here.

And it turned out that the British police had no interest in paying to provide them with security for their North America Wholefoods oat milk runs. So too would the millions of pounds flowing from Pa Charles into their bank accounts stop, given they were no longer on the working royal books.

It is not only the press that Harry has aimed his seemingly endless supply of lawyers at (does he rent them by the dozen?) but also the Home Office.

The duke is also currently challenging the decision made by the Metropolitan Police’s Royal and VIP Executive Committee (Ravec) which oversees the protection of not only HRHs but also the Prime Minister and other public figures.

That case is yet to be heard, but last month, a UK judge knocked back a separate bid by Harry to bring a legal challenge against the Home Office over the fact they had refused him the option to pay for government protection when he is in the UK.

(Just how many spreadsheets must it take Harry to keep track of all his legal fights? By this stage he has so many cases on the boil that he must have to make his lawyers wear name tags).

The thing is, being a prince or princess does not automatically entitle someone to get hot and cold running security. Princess Anne and Prince Edward and his wife Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh are reported to only receive official protection when they are out and about on crown business.

While I’m sure, horribly, that the Sussexes’ security is a more complex matter (I don’t exactly see hate groups or violent extremists all that interested in Edward), it never seems to have occurred to Harry and Meghan that in quitting official life, the same standards would apply to them as to other non-working members of the royal family.

Which is to say, look back at Megxit, and the Sussexes have acted as if they believe they are in a “different category”.

Queen Elizabeth did not accede to their demands, and nor by all accounts was the judge in the MGN case particularly impressed.

Prince Harry’s lawyer said the bad blood between the brothers dates back to 2003.

And even without the duke being in the courtroom, one phrase revealed a laughable claim from Harry.

Mr Sherborne said that the bad blood between Harry and his brother Prince William dated back to 2003 when it was reported the men had disagreed on whether to meet their late mother’s former butler, Paul Burrell.

“Even at this very early formative stage the seeds of discord between these two brothers are starting to be sown,” Mr Sherborne told the court.

“Brothers can sometimes disagree but once it is made public in this way and their inside feelings revealed in the way that they are, trust begins to be eroded.”

And indeed, “brothers can sometimes disagree” – but then most brothers don’t write a 400-plus page tell-all that casts the other brother as the villain of the piece.

Most brothers don’t traduce their family’s privacy again and again in the name of moolah. Most brothers don’t make a multi-part TV series about their family feuding or give interviews in which they call their stepmother “dangerous” and that she had “left bodies in the street” in her journey to being Queen.

Harry, in pointing the finger at the press for “eroding the trust” between the duke and his family, after the very same duke accepted tens of millions of dollars to breach the trust of his own family, is more than a bit rich.

And all of this is just the beginning.

Even before Harry enters court on Tuesday UK time to start giving evidence, we have an “annoyed” judge, a missing duke and an eye popper of a claim.

If this is where things stand after only one day, Harry may yet trounce Bertie in the courtroom drama stakes – and all without a single card dealt or single pair of knickers whipped orrfff. What an achievement.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.