Prince Harry Wins Next Stage of Fight With UK Media

Prince Harry could appear in a British courtroom once again.

In a ruling announced on Friday, his case against the publishers of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline can go to trial.

The Duke of Sussex, 39 — along with other prominent figures including Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley, Jude Law’s ex-wife Sadie Frost and Baroness Doreen Lawrence — brought the case against Associated Newspapers for breach of privacy. Harry made a surprise appearance in London for the preliminary hearing in March.

The group alleges a catalog of “unlawful information gathering” such as the placement of listening devices in their cars and homes by private investigators, the surreptitious recording of private telephone calls, obtaining information by deception and the use of private investigators.

In March, Associated Newspapers denied the allegations calling them “preposterous smears,” the BBC reported. The newspaper group sought to have the case thrown out.

The ruling for the case to move forward was made by Mr. Justice Nicklin on Friday morning. He said Associated Newspaper “has failed to deliver a ‘knockout blow’ to any of the claims.”

The judge added, “Each claimant has a real prospect of demonstrating that Associated, or those for whom Associated is responsible, concealed from him/her the relevant facts upon which a worthwhile claim of unlawful information gathering could have been advanced.”

It is one of a number of legal actions in the U.K. that King Charles’ younger son is involved in. Prince Harry was last in court in the U.K. in June when he pursued a separate case against the publishers of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror. That case is ongoing, while he is also involved in a third action involving the publishers of The Sun newspaper.

Welcoming the news on Friday, Prince Harry and his co-claimants issued a statement saying they were “delighted with today’s decision” that the case will proceed to trial.

The statement said, “The High Court has dismissed ‘without difficulty’ the attempt by Associated Newspapers (publisher of The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and the Mail Online) to throw these cases out. The Judge found that each of our claims had a real prospect of showing there was concealment of unlawful acts by the Mail titles and that this could not have been discovered until recently. Our claims can now proceed to trial.”

“As we have maintained since the outset, we bring our claims over the deplorable and illegal activities which took place over many years, including private investigators being hired to place secretly listening devices inside our cars and homes, the tapping of our phone calls, corrupt payments to police for inside information, and the illegal accessing of our medical information from hospitals and financial information from banks,” the statement continued. “We intend to uncover the truth at trial and hold those responsible at Associated Newspapers fully accountable.”

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It now means the case will go to trial at a future date. There is another preliminary hearing on Nov. 21 in the case.