Two UK newspaper publishers failed in their quest to have a case for improper information collection brought by Prince Harry and others dismissed from court on Friday, setting the stage for a prospective trial.
The legal team representing Associated Newspapers (ANL), the company responsible for publishing the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, maintained that the claims were filed too late.
Although Judge Matthew Nicklin initially agreed with the defendants, he later ruled that the case could proceed.
Jerrymusa.com reports that Harry blames the media for his mother, Princess Diana, being killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 as she tried to escape cameras. This ruling is the latest chapter in his tumultuous relationship with the media.
Doreen Lawrence, whose son Stephen was killed in a racial murder in 1993, is another claimant. So are pop artist Elton John and his husband David Furnish, actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, and politician Simon Hughes.
Judging on the length of his 95-page ruling, the court concluded that ANL “had not been able to deliver a knockout blow to the claims of any of these claimants.”
Each plaintiff “has a real prospect of demonstrating that Associated… concealed from him/her the relevant facts upon which a worthwhile claim of unlawful information gathering could have been advanced,” he ruled.
Harry and the other claimants accuse ANL of practices such as hiring private investigators, tapping phone calls, and impersonating individuals to get medical information for articles.
The court has been informed that the misconduct began as early as 1993 and lasted until 2018.
The allegations have been denied by ANL, which claims the trial is unnecessary.