Harry and Meghan take Los Angeles paparazzi to court

Harry and Meghan have sued to stop the sale and publication of a photo of their son Archie they say was shot at their LA home.

Meghan and Archie celebrate his first birthday. Picture: Instagram

The Duke and Duchesses of Sussex have sued to stop the sale and publication of a photo of their son Archie they say was shot at their Los Angeles home in invasion of their privacy.

Harry and Meghan give a detailed account in the lawsuit lodged on Thursday (Friday AEST) of the media harassment they say they’ve had to fight in the months since they moved to California.

“This action arises out of the relentless and quite frankly shocking efforts of the tabloid media to profit from serial intrusions of the privacy of a 14-month-old child in his own home,” the suit says, “and the desire and responsibility of any parent to do what is necessary to protect their children from this manufactured feeding frenzy.”

The Duke and Duchesses of Sussex on a Zoom call with young leaders. Picture: Queen's Commonwealth Trust

Meghan and Harry said the tabloid harassment came to a head when they saw that a photo of Archie was being offered to media outlets that was purportedly taken on a family outing in Malibu, when it was clearly shot while he was in their yard, unbeknown to them.

“Archie has not been in public, much less in Malibu, since the family arrived here,” the lawsuit says.

It alleges the picture is mislabelled because the sellers knew it would be unlawful for them to sell a photograph of a child in his own home.

The couple has not learned the identity of the shooters and sellers of the photos, who are listed as John Does in the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. The lawsuit seeks to identify the defendants, and for the court to issue injunctions requiring them to turn over all photos of Archie and cease harassing the family. It says the family was forced to erect a large mesh fence to block photographers with telephoto lenses from shooting pictures of them from a ridge hundreds of metres away from the home of a friend in a gated community where they have been living.

That led to the appearance of drones that flew as close as 6m above their home, as often as three times a day, in attempts to get photos, the suit says. Helicopters have flown over as early as 5.30am, waking Archie and neighbours, and some photographers have cut holes in their mesh fence attempting to get shots of them.

In January, the couple announced they planned to quit as senior royals, seek financial independence and move to North America. The split became official at the end of March.

The couple chose to live at least part-time in North America “to escape the incessant UK tabloid fabrications,” the lawsuit says. Meghan is also suing a pair of media outlets there for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement.

AP