Why is Prince Harry in court? Mirror Group trial explained

LONDON, June 6 (Reuters) - Prince Harry will become the first British royal to appear in the witness box since the 1890s when he testifies on Tuesday at the High Court in London as part of his lawsuit against Mirror Group Newspapers.

Here are details of the trial:

Harry and more than 100 other people are suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), publisher of the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People tabloids, accusing them of widespread unlawful activities between 1991 and 2011.

Those involved include actors, sports stars, celebrities and people who simply had a connection to high-profile figures.

They say the media group's journalists or private investigators commissioned by them carried out phone-hacking on an "industrial scale" and obtained private details by deception.

Senior editors and executives knew and approved of the behaviour, the claimants' lawyers say.

MGN is contesting the claims and denies senior figures were aware of wrongdoing. It also argues some of the lawsuits were brought too late.

Harry, the younger son of King Charles, was selected at an earlier hearing as one of four test cases for the trial which began on May 10.

He did not appear as expected in court on Monday. The judge said he was "surprised" and MGN's lawyers called his absence "absolutely extraordinary".

The prince is expected to face hours of questioning in the witness box on Tuesday.

Phone hacking, the illegal interception of voicemails on mobile phones, first came to attention in 2006 when the then- royal editor of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World (NoW) tabloid and a private investigator were arrested.

They pleaded guilty and were jailed in 2007. The NoW and senior figures at Murdoch's News Group Newspapers (NGN) UK operation said the hacking was limited to a rogue reporter.

But further revelations in 2011, including that a murdered schoolgirl had been targeted, led to the closure of the paper and a criminal trial.

[1/6] Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex arrives the Rolls Building of the High Court in London, Britain June 6, 2023. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

In 2014, the NoW's former editor, Andy Coulson, who later worked for ex-Prime Minister David Cameron, was found guilty of conspiracy to hack phones and jailed. Rebekah Brooks, who heads up Murdoch's UK newspaper and radio operation, was acquitted of all charges.

The Mirror group had consistently denied its journalists had been involved in hacking, including at a public inquiry, but in 2014 it admitted liability in four cases.

Since then, MGN has settled more than 600 claims at a cost of over 100 million pounds ($120 million) in damages and costs.

Harry says 140 stories which appeared in MGN papers were the result of phone-hacking or other unlawful behaviour; however, the trial is only considering 33 of these.

His lawyers said the intrusion led to the breakdown of his relationship with a long-term girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, and that MGN had sown "the seeds of discord" in Harry's relationship with his elder brother Prince William.

In other documents released at the outset of the trial, MGN admitted there was evidence that private investigators had been instructed to unlawfully gather information about three of those involved in the test cases, including, on one occasion, Harry.

The publisher said it unreservedly apologised and that he was entitled to compensation.

However it has rejected his other claims. Its lawyer said there was no evidence to say his phones had ever been hacked and in documents, it said some of the information had been passed on by a former senior aide working for his father.

Harry is suing MGN to focus attention on alleged unlawful activities and not because of "some vendetta against the press", his lawyer has said.

The MGN case is one of four that Harry is currently pursuing at the High Court against British newspapers.

He is also suing Murdoch's NGN, which publishes the Sun tabloid and used to produce the defunct NoW, over alleged phone hacking and other unlawful acts. NGN denies the Sun was involved in wrongdoing and is fighting to have his case thrown out.

The prince, with singer Elton John and five others, is also suing Associated Newspapers (ANL), publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, over phone hacking and illicit privacy breaches. ANL denies any unlawful activity.

Harry is also suing ANL for libel.

"This isn't just about phone hacking, this is about accountability of power," he wrote in a statement as part of the NGN case. He said the press was too important to have "criminals masquerading as journalists running the show".

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