Prince Harry throws in the towel.
The Duke of Sussex has dropped his defamation proceedings against the publishing company of the British tabloid Mail on Sunday, which he had attacked over an article relating to his police protection when he visits the United Kingdom, the publication announced on Friday.
The article published in February 2022 accused, wrongly according to the defense, Harry, who lives in the United States, of having "lied" and of having "tried to keep secret" his appeal against the government to try to obtain police protection during his visits to the United Kingdom.
Read alsoHospitalizations of Kate Middleton and Charles III: who to replace the members of the British royal family?
The youngest son of King Charles III, who has filed numerous lawsuits against the tabloids, filed a motion that would have allowed him to settle the matter without going to trial.
But the courts rejected it in December, and he also had to pay 48,000 pounds (56,000 euros) to the newspaper's publisher.
A bill of almost 900,000 euros
Faced with the prospect of having to defend the case in court, the Duke of Sussex "admitted his defeat" the day his lawyers had to submit new documents to the courts, we can read on Friday in an article from another tabloid of the same group, the Daily Mail.
“Instead, Harry threw in the towel and his lawyers informed the High Court at 10am that he was
dropping
the case,” it said.
“He will now have to pay the newspaper's costs, amounting to 250,000 pounds (290,000 euros) as well as his own lawyer's fees, making a total bill of more than 750,000 pounds (874,000 euros),” says the Daily Mail.
Harry is focused on this case and on “the safety of his family, rather than on legal proceedings which give a continued platform to the false assertions of the Mail all those years ago”, reacted a spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex.
He added that it was “premature” to speculate on the calculation of the legal costs linked to the abandonment of this procedure against the tabloid.
Having left the royal family and the United Kingdom, Harry and his wife Meghan Markle are no longer entitled to police protection at the expense of the British taxpayer.
Charles' second son had asked to be able to benefit from police protection, paying with his personal funds, when he is in the United Kingdom, but this request was rejected by the courts in May.
He has initiated a second procedure on this subject, in which he contests the cessation of systematic support for his security when he is in the United Kingdom.