Prince Harry ordered to pay Mail publisher almost £50,000 after losing final stage of legal battle

Prince Harry was today ordered to pay almost £50,000 to the publisher of the Mail after losing the final stages of a legal battle.

A High Court judge has ordered the Duke of Sussex to pay the legal costs incurred by The Mail on Sunday (TMOS) after Harry failed to have the case decided without a trial.

Mr Justice Nicklin said legal costs should be assessed if the two parties cannot agree on an amount, but said Harry must pay £48,447 ‘on account’ before the end of this year.

The 39-year-old duke is suing TMOS over an article claiming his PR staff tried to “twist” his dispute with the Home Office over the decision to cut his taxpayer-funded police protection.

He asked the Supreme Court to rule that the newspaper could not use a legal defense of “honest opinion,” and that a judge would rule in his favor without a public trial.

Harry and Meghan with their royal security in Rotorua, New Zealand in 2018

Harry and Meghan’s government-funded protection in Britain was downgraded after the couple stepped back from royal duties in 2020

But the judge ruled that Associated Newspapers – publisher of TMOS and the Daily Mail – had a “real prospect” of showing that statements made on Harry’s behalf were misleading, and refused his requests.

Mr Justice Nicklin said the newspapers had ‘a real prospect of succeeding also in showing that an honest person could have been of the opinion that the claimant [the duke] was responsible for attempts to mislead and confuse the public about its true position’.

In a written decision released today, he said a full defamation trial would now be scheduled for next year.

The case centers on an article published in February 2022 about Harry’s legal action against the Home Office.

TMOS reported that Harry’s PR advisers informed journalists that he had taken the legal action after offering to pay for police protection for him and his family while they were in Britain, but that the offer was rejected.

The article claimed that such an offer had not been made until later to the Home Office, nor to the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, known as Ravec, and that Harry’s ‘spin doctors’ had attempted to suppress reporting of the story to influence.

It added that such behavior was “ironic considering the prince now plays a role at a Silicon Valley company tackling ‘disinformation’ online.”

Harry launched legal action for defamation, claiming the article was ‘an attack on his honesty and integrity’ and could undermine his charity work and efforts to tackle misinformation online.

TMOS disputed the claim, saying the article expressed honest opinions and did not cause “serious damage” to its reputation.

In his ruling last week, Judge Nicklin said the newspaper had “a real prospect” of showing that a press statement and background briefing given to selected journalists on Harry’s behalf were misleading.

A separate hearing was held at the High Court last week into Harry’s judicial review claim that the decision to downgrade his security was ‘unlawful and unfair’. A ruling in this case is expected at a later date.