By Michael Holden and Sam Tobin

LONDON (Reuters) – Prince Harry’s legal battle against Britain’s Rupert Murdoch newspaper group was heard at London’s High Court on Tuesday where the royal sought a ruling that was known to senior figures and widely covered. which is wrong.

Harry, along with former senior lawmaker Tom Watson, sued News Group Newspapers over alleged unlawful activities by journalists and private investigators working for its papers, the Sun and the now defunct News of the World, from 1996 to 2011.

The prince says his mission is not money but to get to the truth, after other claimants settled cases to avoid the risk of a multi-million pound legal bill that could be imposed even if they win in court. but rejected NGN’s offer.

“One of the main reasons for looking at this is accountability, because I’m the last person to actually achieve that,” Harry, who is scheduled to appear as a witness in February, said last week. month.

NGN has paid out hundreds of millions of pounds to victims of phone hacking and other unlawful World News data collection, and settled more than 1,300 cases involving celebrities, politicians, famous sports figures and ordinary people connected with them or major events.

Harry’s legal team said in earlier court documents that his older brother Prince William, the heir to the throne, settled his own case against NGN in 2020 for “a very large sum of money “.

While Murdoch shut down the News of the World in 2011, the publisher has consistently rejected claims of any illegal activity by The Sun and said it would fully defend the claims.

The eight-week trial will initially consider “generic issues” such as the extent of any phone hacking and unlawful collection of information on the papers.

Harry’s team will argue that senior executives and editors knew the unlawful behavior was widespread, and say they misled the police, giving false statements to a public inquiry into the behavior of media conducted from 2011-12 and prompted a massive cover-up to delete millions of emails.

“This allegation is false, unsustainable, and is vigorously denied,” an NGN spokesperson said. “NGN will call many witnesses including technologists, lawyers and senior staff to defeat the claim.”

As well as Harry, witnesses who should be called, or who gave evidence for the claimants include former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, actors Hugh Grant and Sienna Miller, singers Lily Allen and Heather Mills, Paul McCartney’s ex-wife.