In February 2007 it was announced that Harry’s army regiment would be deployed to Iraq, but, on advice from the armed services, it was decided that neither Harry nor William would serve with Britain’s forces in Iraq, for fear that they would become specific targets of attack and so put their fellow soldiers at excessive risk. The prince later apologized for what he conceded was a serious error of judgment. Like William, Harry attended a sequence of private schools before entering prestigious Eton College.
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.
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. Subsequently, it was reported that the military had instructed Harry to attend a diversity course. Clarence House later issued a public statement in which Harry apologised for his behaviour.
In March 2020, the couple took Splash UK to court after the Duchess and their son were photographed without permission during a “private family outing” while staying in Canada. His appearance marked the first time a member of the royal family had been cross-examined in court since Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, appeared as a witness in court in 1891. In his lawsuit, Harry sought damages in excess of £200,000 from the publisher of the News of the World and The Sun and alleged an earlier agreement between News Group Newspapers (NGN) and the royal family which would see he and William not take legal action in return for an apology had not been honoured. In January 2020, the Duke and Duchess announced that they were stepping back from their role as senior members of the royal family, and would balance their time between the United Kingdom and North America. On Wednesday, he returned to the courtroom to testify about the effects of the period in the 2000s when his private matters often became front-page news—much to Harry’s surprise. “It’s not a nice experience for anyone to find themselves in court,” a source close to the prince told the Times earlier this month.
Private eye with conflicting claims
- On 18 January 2020, Buckingham Palace announced that an agreement had been reached for Harry “to step back from Royal duties, including official military appointments”.
- 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.
- In December 2025, it was announced that, for the first time since April 2019, RAVEC would reassess Harry’s threat level.
- In 2018 Harry married Meghan Markle, and two years later the couple stopped being working members of the British royal family.
- In the following month, UCAS reported an increase in the percentage of students declaring mental health issues on their university applications, citing self-help books and Harry’s statements on his struggles with “panic attacks and anxiety” as contributing factors.
- 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.
- Harry withdrew the libel claim in January 2024 and became liable for the publisher’s £250,000 legal costs.
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.
Prince Harry meets war victims in unannounced visit to Ukraine
It also criticised all sides for allowing the conflict “to play out publicly” and cited poor internal governance and a “failure to resolve disputes internally” as factors that impacted the charity’s reputation. Chandauka reported the charity to the Charity Commission due to what she described as “poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir – and the coverup that ensued”. In March 2021, it was reported that the Charity Commission for England and Wales was conducting a review of the Sussex Royal organisation in a “regulatory and compliance case” regarding its conduct under charity law during dissolution.
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.
- On 17 January 2014, the Ministry of Defence announced that Harry had completed his attachment to 3 Regiment Army Air Corps and would take up a staff officer role, SO3 (Defence Engagement), in HQ London District.
- In January 2015, it was reported that Harry would take on a new role supporting wounded service personnel by working alongside members of the London District’s Personal Recovery Unit for the MOD’s Defence Recovery Capability scheme, ensuring that wounded personnel had adequate recovery plans.
- Despite some public admissions about phone hacking and the shuttering of News of the World in 2011, there were still open questions about what the executives at the company knew, and when they knew it.
- On 8 July 2013, the Ministry of Defence announced that he had successfully qualified as an Apache aircraft commander.
- Harry and Meghan stepped away from their roles as senior royals in 2020, the same year they moved to California, where Meghan is from.
- In 2006 he helped found a charity for children in Lesotho; it was dedicated to his mother, who had died in 1997.
His announcement shocked the global media—and would play a pivotal role in the dissolution of Harry’s relationship with his family, which would culminate in Meghan and Harry’s 2020 decision to step back from senior royal duties and move to North America. LONDON (AP) — Tens of millions of dollars are on the line as Prince Harry returned to court Monday for the third and final chapter in his legal quest to tame the British tabloids. It was a candid look at the couple’s relationship, chronicling their courtship, marriage, and decision to step back from their royal duties. The following year the couple confirmed that they would not return as working members of the royal family, which meant that Harry gave up his honorary military appointments as well as royal patronages. In January 2020 Harry and Meghan announced that they would “step back” from their royal duties and become “financially independent.” In addition, they planned to divide their time between the United Kingdom and North America.
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 tour promoted the rehabilitation of injured American and UK troops, publicised his own charities and supported British interests. He continued to the Bahamas and Jamaica, where the Prime Minister, Portia Simpson-Miller, was considering initiating a process of turning Jamaica into a republic. The new household released a statement announcing they had established their own office at nearby St James’s Palace to look after their public, military and charitable activities.
Prince Harry is in Angola to raise awareness for land mine clearing, repeating Diana’s 1997 trip
“There’s a difference between public interest and what interests the public,” he said. Harry’s lawyers alleged that unlawfully gathered information was used in dozens of articles about the prince that had been published between 1996 and 2010. After more than six years of courtroom struggles, Harry may be getting ready to bury the hatchet. In June 2023, Harry became the first senior royal to testify in High Court since 1891, when his great-great-great-grandfather Edward VII testified for 20 minutes during a trial.
Repairing rift in the royal family
Mahfouz had met Harry in 2013 and 2014 and donated £50,000 to his charity Sentebale and £10,000 to Walking With The Wounded, of which Harry is patron. St James’s Palace confirmed that Harry was in the photographs, saying that he was essentially a victim whose privacy had been invaded and contacted the PCC upon hearing that a number of British newspapers were considering publishing the photographs. Royal aides suggested Clarence House would contact the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) if British publications used the pictures. The pictures were leaked by American celebrity website TMZ on 21 August 2012, and reported worldwide by mainstream media on 22 August 2012.
In early June 2007, it was reported that he had arrived in Canada to train alongside soldiers of the Canadian Forces and the British Army at CFB Suffield near Medicine Hat, Alberta, in preparation for a possible deployment to Afghanistan, where Canadian and British forces were serving in the NATO-led Afghan War. Clarence House made public Harry’s disappointment with the decision, though he said he would abide by it. By 16 May, however, Dannatt announced that Harry would not serve in Iraq; concerns included his status as a high-value target – several threats had already been made against him – and the risks this posed to the soldiers around him should any attempt be made on his life or if he were captured. In 2006, it was announced harry casino login that Harry’s unit was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq the following year.
Cars believed to be escorting Prince Harry, king arrive at Clarence House for reported meeting
The publisher agreed to cover Harry’s legal costs and pay damages reported to be in the region of £300,000. Mr Justice Fancourt concluded Piers Morgan and other editors knew about the phone hacking at their publications and were involved in it. The BBC reported on the “scrapped case”, highlighting NGN’s statement which said that the settlement agreement “drew a line under the past” and that they rejected the claims that would have been made in court about a corporate cover-up. Following Harry and Meghan’s trip to Nigeria in May 2024, Lucia Stein of the ABC argued that the couple could have been used by the royal family, and added that “perhaps how helpful they would have been” had an agreement on a “hybrid working model” been achieved.
Prince Harry visits late queen’s grave as UK trip fuels speculation about meeting with King Charles
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.