Prince Harrys Court Cases and Legal Battles: An Exhaustive Guide

25.06.2024 |  Małgorzata Szostak

Prince Harry, duke of Sussex (born September 15, 1984, London, England) is the duke of Sussex and the younger son of Charles III and Diana, princess of Wales. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s involvement in Cookie Queens was first announced in December 2025, with the Sundance premiere marking their latest professional milestone. “By standing up here and taking a stand against them, this has continued to come after me,” Harry told the court, his voice cracking. The trial marks the last of a series of legal actions Harry has brought against British tabloids in recent years. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped out ahead of the premiere of their new documentary 'Cookie Queens,’ days after Harry’s emotional court testimony in London
To raise awareness for HIV testing, Harry took a test live on the royal family Facebook page on 14 July 2016. Harry announced that $1.5 million of the harry casino login proceeds from the memoir were pledged to the charity Sentebale, while £300,000 would be given to WellChild. In July 2021, it was announced that Harry was set to publish his memoir Spare via Penguin Random House, with Harry reportedly earning an advance of at least $20 million.

Privacy and the media

He also blames them for persistent attacks on his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, that led them to leave royal life and move to the United States in 2020. Harry won a court judgment in 2023 that condemned the publishers of the Daily Mirror for „widespread and habitual” phone hacking. He took a seat in the back row of the courtroom near Hurley and Frost. Harry, wearing a dark blue suit, waved cheerfully at reporters and said „good morning” as he entered the court building via a side entrance. He said the company’s vigorous denials, destruction of records and „masses upon masses of missing documents” had prevented the claimants from learning what the newspapers had done. Although only working royals were allowed to wear military uniforms, Harry was granted an exception for a lying-in-state vigil.

Prince Harry visits late queen’s grave as UK trip fuels speculation about meeting with King Charles

  • In July 2019, Harry and Meghan’s new charity was registered in England and Wales under the title „Sussex Royal The Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex”.
  • Harry compared operating the Apache’s weapons systems in Afghanistan to playing video games.
  • While on holiday in Las Vegas in August 2012, Harry and an unknown young woman were photographed naked in a Wynn Las Vegas hotel room, reportedly during a game of strip billiards.
  • Spare was officially published on 10 January 2023 in 16 languages, and it has since become the UK’s fastest selling non-fiction book with 400,000 confirmed sales in all formats on publication day.
  • For years, Harry has argued that the decision to deny him security stemmed from his family’s anger with him, and that RAVEC did not adequately consider the threats against his life.
  • In January 2025, the two parties settled with NGN paying more than £10 million in pay outs and legal fees in the settlements involving both Harry and former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson.

In July 2019, Harry and Meghan’s new charity was registered in England and Wales under the title „Sussex Royal The Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex”. In his statement, he lent his support to the charity by arguing that its role in bringing sport into the life of disadvantaged people would save „hundreds of millions of pounds” towards treating the issues among young people. In June 2019, the Duke was present at the launch of Made by Sport, a charity coalition set to raise money to boost sport in disadvantaged communities. He had served as the RFU’s vice-royal patron since 2010, supporting the Queen as patron. In September 2025, Harry announced that he had personally donated £1.1 million to BBC Children in Need in December 2024, describing it as a „significant investment” in grassroots organisations in Nottingham supporting young people affected by violence.

Prince Harry arrives at London court to appeal losing access to his security detail

The case was settled later that year with Splash UK agreeing to no longer take unauthorised photos of the family. In January 2020, lawyers issued a legal warning to the press after paparazzi photographs were published in the media. In June 2023, Harry testified in the court case accusing former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan of horrific personal attacks and claimed that his phone had been hacked dating back to when he was still at Eton. At the beginning of trial, MGN apologised for one instance of unlawful information gathering against Harry and added that his legal challenge „warrants compensation”. Lawyers for the Mirror denied accessing Harry’s voicemail messages and other allegations, but admitted to instructing „private investigators to unlawfully obtain private information” about Harry on a single occasion that involved him visiting Chinawhite.

  • The pictures were leaked by American celebrity website TMZ on 21 August 2012, and reported worldwide by mainstream media on 22 August 2012.
  • As with William, the royal family and the tabloid press agreed that Harry would be allowed to study free from intrusion in exchange for occasional photograph opportunities, in what became known as the „pressure cooker agreement”.
  • In May 2025, Harry was interviewed by Nada Tawfik of the BBC, during which he reflected on his loss of taxpayer-funded security and his ongoing estrangement from his family.
  • Lawyers for the Mirror denied accessing Harry’s voicemail messages and other allegations, but admitted to instructing „private investigators to unlawfully obtain private information” about Harry on a single occasion that involved him visiting Chinawhite.
  • Harry announced that $1.5 million of the proceeds from the memoir were pledged to the charity Sentebale, while £300,000 would be given to WellChild.
  • On 8 September 2022, while Harry and Meghan were in London preparing to attend a charity event, Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, and they remained in the United Kingdom for her funeral.

It was also revealed that during the proceedings Harry had leaked information via email to „a partner of Schillings” and to Johnny Mercer, for which he apologised to the court. Despite his lawyers’ attempts to have him pay no more than 50% of the Home Office’s legal costs of defending his challenge, the judge held him liable for 90% of the costs. In June 2023, a Freedom of Information request revealed that Harry’s legal fight with the Home Office had cost £502,236, with £492,000 covered by the state and the remaining £10,000 covered by Harry. In February 2023, a High Court judge ruled that the second case should be thrown out; however, the decision was later appealed by Harry’s legal team. Harry filed a lawsuit against the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police in August 2022, challenging the decision by RAVEC from January 2022 which stated that State security could not be made available to private individuals even if they wished to pay for it themselves.

Prince Harry, duke of Sussex

In June 2011, Clarence House announced that Harry would be available for deployment in current operations in Afghanistan as an Apache helicopter pilot. In October 2008, it was announced that Harry would follow his brother, father, and uncle, in learning to fly military helicopters. It was later reported that Harry had helped Gurkha troops repel an attack by Taliban insurgents, and had carried out patrol duties in hostile areas while in Afghanistan. He was immediately withdrawn due to concerns that the publicity would endanger him and fellow soldiers.

UK’s Starmer slams Trump remarks on non-US NATO troops in Afghanistan as ‘insulting’ and ‘appalling’

„However, as a member of the Institution the policy was to 'never complain, never explain.’ There was no alternative; I was conditioned to accept it. For the most part, I accepted the interest in my performing my public functions.” In his witness statement submitted to the court, Harry said that he learned more about alleged press activity after leaving the U.K., stating, “It is not an exaggeration to say that the bubble burst in terms of what I knew in 2020 when I moved out of the United Kingdom.” Harry and Meghan stepped away from their roles as senior royals in 2020, the same year they moved to California, where Meghan is from.
Mr Justice Swift also reacted to the Duke’s legal team sending a copy of the ruling to someone who was not a lawyer, describing it as „entirely unacceptable”. After receiving applications by the Duke and the Home Office to keep parts of the case private, the High Court ruled in March 2022 that some parts of it would remain confidential. Following the first court hearing of the case by the High Court, it was revealed that Harry had 'exceptional status’ and the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC) still determined his personal protective security on a case-by-case basis.

He lost the legal challenge in May 2023, meaning that he will not be allowed to make private payments for police protection. In January 2022, it was reported that Harry had been in a legal fight since September 2021 over the Home Office’s refusal to allow him to pay for police protection. At the time of the announcement of Harry and Meghan’s decision to „step back” as senior members of the royal family in 2020, 95% of the couple’s income derived from the £2.3 million given to them annually by Harry’s father, Charles, as part of his income from the Duchy of Cornwall.
They have specifically accused the publisher of allegedly hiring private investigators who they claim used unlawful means to gather information on them in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including secretly placing listening devices inside cars and homes and allegedly paying police officials for inside information. Prince Harry, the younger son of King Charles III, took the stand Wednesday in a London courtroom, becoming emotional in his testimony and invoking the experiences of his wife and his late mother. In June 2013, BritainsDNA announced that genealogical DNA tests on two of Harry and William’s distant matrilineal cousins confirm Kewark was matrilineally of Indian descent.
In January 2025, Harry and Meghan’s appearance at a food bank during the Southern California wildfires in the Pacific Palisades drew mixed reactions from segments of the media and public figures, who labeled it „disaster tourism”. It has been suggested by critics that this fall from public esteem is due to Harry and Meghan’s frequent attempts to achieve ongoing relevancy, and their perceived hypocrisy and selfishness. Writing for The New York Times, Sarah Lyall noted that following the release of his memoir Harry and his wife lost support within segments of the American public and press. However, his popularity fell after stepping back from royal duties, and it plummeted after the release of his controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey, his Netflix docuseries, and his memoir. After his marriage, Harry’s popularity skyrocketed above all the other royals as he was deemed likable by 77 per cent of respondents in a poll of 3,600 Britons conducted by statistics and polling company YouGov. In June 2022 and on their way to California after the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, Harry and Meghan boarded a private jet that was estimated to have emitted „ten times more carbon than flying commercial”.
Judge Carl Nichols ordered that redacted versions of the court documents be released by 18 March 2025. He stated that he had struggled with aggression, experienced anxiety during royal engagements, and had been „very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions”. He adds in the memoir that he smoked cannabis at Eton and in the gardens Kensington Palace, though he later told a court that „he never smoked in his father’s house”. In 2002, it was reported that, with Charles’s encouragement, Harry had visited a drug-rehabilitation unit to speak with recovering drug addicts after it emerged that he had been smoking cannabis and drinking at his father’s Highgrove House and at a local pub in the summer of 2001.
The Government of Canada announced RCMP security would not be provided after March 2020 when the couple’s status changed. On 3 November 2025, Harry’s office announced that he would travel to Toronto, Canada, for a series of events ahead of Remembrance Day. On 8 September 2022, while Harry and Meghan were in London preparing to attend a charity event, Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, and they remained in the United Kingdom for her funeral. The Sussexes visited the UK and Germany in September 2022 for a number of charity events in Manchester and Düsseldorf. Because infant son Archie travelled with the Sussexes, this was „their first official tour as a family”. Periodically, online QCT chat sessions were conducted and uploaded to YouTube for general public viewing.
It did, however, see Harry follow in his brother’s footsteps and the Spencer family tradition, as both his maternal grandfather and his maternal uncle attended Eton. It was also reported that Harry would inherit the larger share of the money left by the Queen Mother for the two brothers, as William is expected to ascend the throne and receive additional financial benefits. In 2002, The Times reported that Harry would share with his brother a disbursement of £4.9 million from trust funds established by their great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, on their 21st birthdays, and a further £8 million on their 40th birthdays. Diana sought to give her sons a broader range of experiences and a clearer understanding of ordinary life than previous generations of royal children.

Ułatwienia dostępu