Harry against the tabloids: an agreement reached between the prince and the owner of the newspaper The Sun

The end of a battle between Prince Harry and the tabloids. The heir to the royal family has reached a financial agreement with the owner of The Sun newspaper putting an end to the proceedings he had brought against Rupert Murdoch’s group, David Sherborne, his lawyer, announced on Wednesday. “I am pleased to announce to the Court that the parties have reached an agreement,” he told the High Court in London on Wednesday morning.

News Group Newspapers (NGN) has apologized to King Charles’ youngest son for “phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators” acting on behalf of the group . “Substantial reparations” will be paid to him, the lawyer added to the High Court in London.

A “serious intrusion”

This financial agreement allows Prince Harry and the NGN group to avoid a trial which was initially scheduled to begin Tuesday and last several weeks. The publications are accused by Harry of having used, in particular through private detectives, illegal processes to collect information intended to feed articles concerning him more than a decade ago.

The group also apologized to the prince for “the impact the extensive coverage and serious intrusion into his privacy and that of Diana, Princess of Wales, his late mother, had on him, particularly during his young years.

The Duke of Sussex, now retired from the royal family, lives in California with his wife Meghan and their two children. He always held the paparazzi responsible for the death of his mother Diana in 1997 in Paris. In 2024, he won a major victory against the tabloid press by obtaining the conviction of the editor of the Daily Mirror for articles resulting from the hacking of telephone messages.