11 Dec PRINCE HARRY SUES MAIL ON SUNDAY OVER MARINES ALLEGATION
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has brought a defamation claim against the publisher of the Mail on Sunday, over a story alleging that he had failed to maintain contact with the Royal Marines after stepping down from Royal duties in March of this year.
Harry’s claim against Associated Newspapers Limited (“ANL”) will join the privacy action brought by his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, against the same newspaper, over its article which published excerpts from a letter written to her estranged father.
The precise details of the complaint have yet to emerge, but Harry did give up his honorary military titles after formally stepping back from Royal duties in March.
He spent a decade in the forces and carried out two frontline tours to Afghanistan.
Earlier in the year, he spoke publicly of how he was “born into a life of duty” but that, during his time in the military, he “committed to a life of service”.
Despite this, Harry’s ceremonial roles as Captain General of the Royal Marines, Honorary Air Force Commandant of the Royal Air Force base Honington, and Honorary Commodore-in-Chief of the Royal Naval Commands’ Small Ships and Diving, were all put on hold when the Duke and the Duchess left the UK to live abroad.
This further claim against ANL is one of six lawsuits which the Royal couple have joined or initiated over the past year.
In addition to Meghan’s claim against ANL, Harry has joined both parts of the long-running phone-hacking litigation against the owners of the Sun, the defunct News of the World, and the Daily Mirror, in relation to claims that his mobile phone was hacked.
Harry and Meghan as a couple have brought a privacy claim on behalf of their son Archie against the Splash News and Picture Agency, over long lens pictures of Meghan with her son Archie in a sling on Vancouver Island, taken earlier this year.
And the couple have issued proceedings against paparazzi in California for invasion of privacy, after drones were alleged to have been used to take pictures of Archie, at the house where they were staying in Los Angeles.