PRINCE Harry is set to find out today whether he will win a High Court ruling against the publisher of The Mail on Sunday.
A judge will rule on the latest round of the Duke of Sussex’s libel battle against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).
The duke is suing the publisher after the paper ran a story following a hearing in the duke’s separate High Court claim over his security arrangements when he is in the UK.
The piece was published in February under the headline: “Exclusive: How Prince Harry tried to keep his legal fight with the government over police bodyguards a secret… then – just minutes after the story broke – his PR machine tried to put a positive spin on the dispute.”
At a hearing in June, Mr Justice Nicklin was asked to determine the “natural and ordinary” meaning of the parts of the article in the claim, and whether they were defamatory.
He will give his ruling remotely at 10am today.
Lawyers for Harry argued the article was defamatory and meant that Harry had “lied”, had “improperly and cynically” tried to manipulate public opinion and had “tried to keep his legal fight with the Government secret from the public”.
Justin Rushbrooke QC, for Harry, said: “Allegations that a person has lied to the public, manipulated the public and attempted to keep secret which ought properly to be public are serious ones which tend to lower him in the eyes of right-thinking people.”
However, ANL’s lawyers argued the article was not defamatory, with Andrew Caldecott QC arguing: “The article does allege that the claimant’s PR team spun the story, or added a gloss unduly favourable to the claimant, which led to inaccurate reporting and confusion about the nature of the claim.
“It does not allege dishonesty against them.”
In a separate case, which the Mail on Sunday story was referring to, Harry is suing the Home Office over its refusal to spend taxpayers’ money on his bodyguards after he quit royal life.
His lawyers asked Mr Justice Swift at a hearing in London yesterday to allow a full judicial review of the Home Office’s decision.
