The publisher of ‘The Sun’ and Prince Harry are “very close” to coming to a settlement. The settlement can potentially avoid the imminent trial over an alleged information-gathering, the High Court claimed on Tuesday.
Harry and the News Group Newspapers might ask the Court of Appeal for more time to continue the discussions. This could be because a judge refused a bid to postpone the start of the trial for a third time in a row. The Duke of Sussex and Lord Tom Watson, former Labor deputy leader are supposedly suing News Group Newspapers over allegations of unlawful gathering of information.
Telegraph reports (behind paywall): ‘Prince Harry enters settlement negotiations with Sun publisher. The Duke of Sussex previously vowed never to settle his claim for unlawful information gathering.’ See: https://t.co/cG9KKVuXb8
— CIoJ (@CIoJournalist) January 21, 2025
NGN, which even ran the News Of The World which is now-defunct, has completely denied claims of any unlawful activity to have taken place at The Sun. The trial was about to start at 10:30 am on Tuesday, however it was delayed to 2pm twice. Followed by request made by barristers from both the sides for third adjournment until Wednesday, 10am. It was Mr Justice Fancourt who refused the request, he stated that both the sides were given “ample time to seek to resolve their differences”.
Anthony Hudson KC, for NGN requested a third adjournment and said that the parties “have been involved in very intense negotiations over the last few days and the reality is we are very close”, he further added that there were “time difference difficulties”. He said: “Very unusually, both parties are in complete agreement that this is a very important step.”
“The number of times the parties have been in agreement in this litigation are very few and far between. Both parties feel they have no choice but to persist in this.” Anthony continued: “We do believe in the long run that this will give significant benefit to the court. For the sake of two hours, we are very concerned that if we don’t have these two hours, something that is capable of being achieved may not be achieved.”
The reason he says is a real difficulty today has to do with time difference issues. He further claims, “These time difference difficulties will be resolved very shortly this afternoon and that is why we do suggest that if My Lord is willing to resume tomorrow at 10am, that could make a very significant difference to the parties.”
David Sherborne, for Harry and Lord Watson, remarks: “Mr Hudson and I would not be asking for further time if we did not think it stood any prospect of potentially saving a lot of court time.”
The parties can now finally go to the Court of Appeal to challenge the decision, and stop a third adjournment.
Prince Harry’s lawyer: The Sun has also made a settlement offer to Harry https://t.co/1TrtmLzrcF pic.twitter.com/3BXTjujaqE
— Kaiser@Celebitchy (@KaiseratCB) April 18, 2024
Mr Justice Fancourt dismissed the third delay by saying: “I made it clear this morning when granting the second adjournment that it would be the final adjournment. I see no reason to change my mind. I am not satisfied on the basis of what I have been shown so far that the trial should not proceed at this time and will therefore not allow the further adjournment.”
Not just that, he even refused permission to appeal against the decision and stated, “I’m not going to stand in the way of access to justice if the parties wish to go to the Court of Appeal.” The High Court trial, which had the possibility to last up to ten weeks, is set to resume at 10am on Wednesday.
