Ahead of the press trial, an expert appears to warn Prince Harry that he would “achieve very little” from the case against a giant media empire.
His case pitted him against media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun and the defunct News of the World.
He alleged the people working for the tabloids from 1996 until 2011 unlawfully snooped into his private life, including allegedly obtaining his ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy’s flight records.
But Professor Tim Luckhurst, principal of South College at Britain’s Durham University, told Newsweek, “I think he’s spending a great deal of money to achieve very little.”
His comments come as the Duke of Sussexx and a former British lawmaker Tom Watson are the last key holdovers in their lawsuits against the News Group Newspapers after more than 1,000 cases were settled in the phone tapping scandal.
However, Harry previously argued his motive is truth but not the money. “Seeing all this evidence only now is infuriating,” he said in his witness statement in 2023.
“To know we were being tracked, bugged, and hacked while trying to have a private relationship, just so [publisher] NGN could print a story and sell a newspaper, is mind-blowing,” the 40-year-old continued.
“Methods that should, at best, be reserved for proper investigative journalism that looks into public-interest stories were being used on normal, innocent people, and for what?” he noted.
“Those responsible should be locked up in my view as there is zero justification and it is, frankly, criminal. Any claim or suggestion senior staff weren’t aware of what their employees/journalists were doing is obviously a lie,” Harry concluded.
