The British court ordered on Thursday the holding of a trial next January against the editor of the tabloid newspaper The Sun, who was sued by Prince Henry, the youngest son of Charles III, for illegal information gathering.
News Group Newspapers (NGN) will be the second publishing group to be sued following a civil lawsuit brought by the 38-year-old prince, who has had a strained relationship with the rest of the royal family since he and his wife Meghan left the monarchy and They went to live in the United States.
Harry, who continues to blame the tabloids for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, in a car accident while being chased by paparazzi in Paris in 1997, has recently launched several legal actions against newspapers.
In this case, he accuses NGN, part of the Australian tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s empire, of improperly gathering information, especially through private detectives.
The group denies the accusations and has requested that the charges be dropped, arguing that they were filed too late.
In court documents, the prince said he had been slow to take legal action because of a “secret agreement” between NGN and his older brother, Prince William, with whom he has tense relations. NGN denies the existence of such an agreement.
Judge Timothy Fancourt on Thursday ordered the trial to proceed but dismissed allegations of phone hacking, rejecting that the prince could modify his demands based on the alleged “secret agreement”.
British justice already decided in May that NGN would be prosecuted for illegal information gathering in a lawsuit brought by actor Hugh Grant.
Enrique also managed to get a trial against the MGN group, publisher of the Daily Mirror tabloid newspaper and its Sunday and tabloid editions.
In that case, the ruling on which has yet to be announced, Enrique testified at length before London’s High Court in early June, denouncing voicemail hacking “on an industrial scale”, an allegation the group denies.
However, the latter acknowledged part of the accusations and apologized to the king’s son.