Prince Harry has made a surprise appearance at the High Court as legal proceedings began in a phone-tapping and privacy case involving Associated Newspapers.
It is believed to be the first time the Duke of Sussex has been back in the UK since the funeral last September of his grandmother, the Queen.
He is among a group of claimants making accusations against the publisher of the Daily Mail newspaper.
Associated Newspapers denies the allegations and a preliminary High Court hearing starting today will consider legal arguments, and a judge will decide whether it will go any further.
Footage showed a smiling prince flanked by bodyguards arriving at at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, dressed in a suit, tie and black winter coat, and surrounded by journalists.
At one point, he bumped into a photographer as he walked through the gates of the courthouse.
As proceedings got under way, Harry sat towards the back of the courtroom, occasionally writing in a small black notebook.
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Everything you need to know about Prince Harry’s High Court case
‘Harry doesn’t need to be at the High Court today’
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The 38-year-old’s return to the UK comes amid tensions with Buckingham Palace over bombshell disclosures made in his controversial memoir, Spare, in which he laid bare his troubled relationship with his father, King Charles, and brother William, the Prince of Wales.
Harry is not expected to be seeing his family. Buckingham Palace has said the King is not in Windsor or London and will be leaving for a state visit to Germany on Wednesday.
Sky’s arts and entertainment correspondent Katie Spencer, at the High Court, said: “Absolutely nobody was expecting this because really there is no need for Prince Harry to be appearing in court this week.
“I tried to put a question to him about why he was here today and he ignored me pretty much and just said ‘good morning’.
“The first signs we got that he may be turning up were barriers went up outside and a couple of police vans turned up.”
She added: “The prince has spoken about the fact that he wants to make this his life’s work – that there are people who should be held accountable for violating his and his family’s privacy.
“He’s here today, he wants the world to know he is very serious about this, and he wants this to go to trial.”
Who is involved in the court case?
Harry is bringing the action along with others including actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, pop star Sir Elton John and his husband, filmmaker David Furnish, and Baroness Doreen Lawrence of Clarendon OBE.
Sir Elton and Frost were also in court for Monday’s proceedings – the start of a four-day hearing.
They allege they have been victims of “abhorrent criminal activity” and “gross breaches of privacy” by Associated Newspapers Limited – and announced in October they were bringing claims for misuse of private information against ANL, also the publisher of The Mail On Sunday and MailOnline.
It is alleged the unlawful acts included hiring private investigators to secretly place listening devices inside cars and homes, the recording of private phone conversations, accessing bank accounts through illicit means and paying police officials for inside information.
David Sherborne, representing Harry and the other high-profile individuals, said in written submissions to the High Court the allegations included “illegally intercepting voicemail messages, listening into live landline calls, obtaining private information such as itemised phone bills or medical records by deception or ‘blagging’, using private investigators to commit these unlawful information gathering acts on their behalf and even commissioning the breaking and entry into private property”.
“They range through a period from 1993 to 2011, even continuing beyond until 2018,” the barrister added.
Some details of singer-songwriter Sir Elton and his husband’s case against ANL were also revealed. The court heard they found the unexplained disclosure of their private information in the press “frightening” and as a result have someone watching cameras in their home every night.
Prince Harry v Associated Newspapers: What is alleged?
Prince Harry is among a group of claimants including Sir Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, accusing the publisher of breaches of privacy including phone-tapping and bugging people’s homes.
Accusations include:
• The hiring of private investigators to secretly place listening devices inside people’s cars and homes
• The commissioning of individuals to surreptitiously listen into and record people’s live, private telephone calls while they were taking place
• The payment of police officials, with corrupt links to private investigators, for inside, sensitive information
• The impersonation of individuals to obtain medical information from private hospitals, clinics, and treatment centres by deception
• The accessing of bank accounts, credit histories and financial transactions through illicit means and manipulation
Lawyers representing ANL told the hearing, before Mr Justice Nicklin, the privacy claims are “stale” and should be dismissed without trial.
Adrian Beltrami KC, in written submissions, argued that the legal actions have been brought too late.
Quoting from Harry’s letter of claim, he continued: “Indeed, the Duke was aware throughout this period of the intense interest in his life shown by the media and by Associated, of ‘strange things happening around his phone communications’, of ‘unexplained disclosures of private information’ in Associated’s publications and of journalists from Associated ‘regularly turning up at different locations which you would never expect them to, including South Africa… despite the extreme lengths my security team and I went to in order to protect my security and privacy’.”
ANL has previously described the accusations as “preposterous smears” and a “pre-planned and orchestrated attempt to drag the Mail titles into the phone-hacking scandal”.
A spokesperson for the publisher has also said the allegations are “unsubstantiated and highly defamatory claims, based on no credible evidence”.
Who else is Prince Harry taking to court?
It is the latest of several cases brought against the tabloid press by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex over the last few years, and this is just one of several cases Prince Harry is involved in.
He is also suing News Group Newspapers (NGN), the publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun newspapers (as well as the now-defunct News of the World) for alleged phone-hacking.
The Sun has always denied phone-hacking took place at the paper, and the publisher has not admitted any unlawful conduct at the title.
It will then head to Australia in February 2025, before travelling across Europe and arriving in the UK on 7 July when she will perform for two nights in Glasgow, at OVO Hydro.
Eilish will then play six nights at the O2 in London, and four nights at the new Co-Op Live arena in Manchester – a venue that has been beset with problems as it prepares to open to the public.
The singer will then play two gigs in Dublin, Ireland, at the 3Arena.
A vocal environmentalist, fans are being encouraged to take “sustainable transport” during the tour, which will also feature “eco-villages” and encourage plant-based food options.
The tour will partner with the plant-based food organisation Support + Feed – an initiative founded by Eilish’s mother Maggie Baird – and environmental non-profit organisation REVERB.
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The concerts will also aim to reduce “greenhouse gas pollution, decreasing single-use plastic waste, supporting climate action”, the promoters Live Nation said.
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Like Swift, Eilish is encouraging fans to listen to the collection as a whole, saying on her website that the new body of work should be listened to chronologically as it “hits you hard and soft both lyrically and sonically, while bending genres and defying trends along the way”.
She’s not released any singles in advance, encouraging fans to listen “in one go”.
The album cover features Eilish on her back under dark water with a white door open above her.
Eilish’s last album was 2021’s Happier Than Ever, and her debut record When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was released in 2019.
The mother of Gogglebox star George Gilbey has revealed his last words to her were “I love you”.
Gilbey died after falling through a plastic skylight while fixing a warehouse roof in Essex in March.
The 40-year-old appeared alongside his mum, Linda McGarry, and stepdad on the hit Channel 4 show.
The family first appeared on the second series of Gogglebox in 2013 but were dropped the following year when Gilbey signed up for the 14th series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2014, reaching the final.
Mrs McGarry said she spoke to him on the phone hours before his death.
She told The Sun: “He phoned me at 9.30 in the morning and said he was working – and asked me for his ‘breakfast money’.
“I put £30 in his account so he could get food, and he seemed fine.
“He had a drink the night before, and liked a bottle of white wine or two, but was happy that he was working. He ended the phone call by saying, ‘I love you’ like he usually did. I treasure those words.”
She added: “It was an honour for him to have been my son. We had a blast for 40 years.”
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Mrs McGarry said her son had struggled with the death of his dad, stepfather and her own Parkinson’s diagnosis.
At the time of his death, he was working to save money to move closer to his seven-year-old daughter, Amelie, in southwest London.
“He wanted to be with Amelie, who he adored,” she told The Sun.
“They were on the third day of a job that was going to last a month, and he was going to get money together from that.
“When they were together, George and Amelie were always laughing. She is going to miss him terribly, like we all will.”
Author CJ Sansom, who created the character of Matthew Shardlake, has died at the age of 71, his publisher has announced.
Sansom first introduced readers to Shardlake – a lawyer who solves crimes while navigating the religious reforms and political intrigue of Tudor England – in the 2003 book Dissolution.
The Scottish writer released six further novels featuring Shardlake, as well as two standalone historical novels, Winter In Madrid and Dominion.
His works have just been adapted into the series Shardlake, which features The Innocents star Arthur Hughes as the main character and Game Of Thrones actor Sean Bean as Thomas Cromwell.
The first season of the Tudor murder mystery series is set to be released by Disney+ on Wednesday.
Announcing his death on Monday, publishers Pan Macmillan wrote in a statement: “It is with immense sadness that Pan Macmillan announces the death of CJ Sansom.”
“‘It is an extraordinarily strange coincidence that Chris has died only a handful of days before a new generation of fans will meet Matthew Shardlake, Barak and Guy and co for the first time through,” his agent, Antony Topping, said.
“This is also a moment for which Chris’s established fans have been waiting a long time.
“Chris was so proud of all the work and determination that went into bringing the novels to our television screens, which I hope will bring an entirely new audience to the books and which will maybe also inspire some old fans to return to their favourite CJ Sansom novels.”
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Sansom’s long-time editor and publisher, Maria Rejt, added that he was working on a new Shardlake book but his “worsening health made progress painfully slow”.
She described the author as an “intensely private person” who took immense pleasure in the public’s enthusiastic response to his novels.
“I shall miss him hugely, not only as a wonderfully talented writer who gave joy to millions, but as a dear friend of enormous compassion and integrity,” Ms Rejt said.
Shardlake featured as the protagonist in a total of seven of Sansom’s novels. Dissolution was dramatised once before by BBC Radio 4 in 2012.
With more than three million copies of his novels in print, Sansom was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger Award in 2022 for his outstanding contribution to the genre.
Born in Edinburgh in 1952, Sansom attended Birmingham University where he studied an undergraduate degree and PhD in history.
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He worked as a solicitor before becoming a full-time writer where he was able to combine his passion for history and law securing him as one of Britain’s bestselling historical novelists.
Sansom was also a signatory to an 2014 open letter advocating that Scotland should remain in the UK.
The author also donated £161,000 to the Better Together campaign, according to published accounts.