Harry, Elton John and Liz Hurley lost their case but media intrusion linked to Diana shows limits of free speech.
Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. Picture: Justin Tallis / AFP
Whatever you think about Prince Harry – also known as the Duke of Sussex – you cannot deny that, for much of his life, he has been hounded by the media and, specifically, the tabloid press in the UK.
He believes, with some justification, that tabloid vultures played a part in the death of his mother, Princess Diana, in a car crash in Paris in 1997.
So it’s understandable he would go to the courts in London in an attempt to hold Associated Newspapers accountable for its allegedly unlawful information gathering on him and his family.
He was joined in the suit by Elton John and actress Liz Hurley, who claim they have been similarly tormented.
The court ruled against them yesterday.
But this is not the victory for free speech that some British rags think it is.
We are no royalists and we believe that many people hate the very idea of a free press, but a line needs to be drawn somewhere when it comes to gratuitously invading someone’s private space.
And, let’s not forget that readers are partly to blame: If they didn’t have a voracious hunger for gossip about celebrities, there’d be no paparazzi photographers or dustbin-trawling journalists.
