King's top aides drawn into Prince Harry High Court battle with The Sun

Two of King Charles’s closest aides are under pressure to hand over private documents for Prince Harry’s legal battle against The Sun newspaper, the High Court has heard.

The Duke of Sussex is suing the tabloid’s publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN), over alleged unlawful information gathering, with a blockbuster trial set for January next year.

On Thursday, it was revealed Sir Clive Alderton, the King’s Private Secretary, and Royal treasurer Sir Michael Stevens could now be dragged into the legal war.

NGN has made a request for disclosure of documents from the senior Royal aides which may be relevant to the civil claim, and it is asking Prince Harry to help obtain the material.

But the Duke is resisting the newspaper publisher’s efforts, branding it a “classic fishing exercise” and insisting he has already gone to great lengths to comply with disclosure obligations in High Court cases.

Harry claims he was the target of unlawful information gathering for several years by The Sun and the now-defunct News of the World newspaper.

The Duke himself is also under pressure to carry out new searches of email accounts, computers, WhatsApp messages, social media accounts, and storage devices ahead of next year’s trial.

Prince Harry says he was targeted unlawfully by the News of the World

In preparation for the case, Harry says he has already scoured his home in California for physical documents and carried out a digital search of his former Royal email account.

He says he has confirmed that old laptops and phones, as well as a defunct Hotmail account, would not assist the case, he has made “extensive enquiries” with members of the Royal Household, and has spoken to Royal aides Lord Christopher Geidt, Sally Osman, Sir David Manning, and Nick Loughran to “confirm they do not hold relevant documents”.

He is resisting the latest disclosure requests from NGN, calling it “entirely unnecessary and disproportionate”.

NGN is also making an application for documents from the Duke’s former solicitors, Harbottle and Lewis.

David Sherbourne outside the High Court in December 2023 (Getty Images)

The hearing on Thursday heard Prince Harry communicated with ghostwriter JR Moehringer via the app Signal while they created his memoir ‘Spare’, and he says that chat history has been “wiped”.

The court was also told drafts of the book were destroyed prior to publication by Mr Moehringer.

Harry is facing accusations of “obfuscation” in the disclosure process, and it was suggested by NGN’s barrister Anthony Hudson KC that 11,000 documents that are currently under review have had to be “dragged out of the claimant kicking and screaming”.

Mr Hudson also suggested it is “shocking and extraordinary” that two hard-drives which it believed contained relevant material have apparently been destroyed.

David Sherborne, who leads the Duke’s legal team, urged Mr Justice Fancourt to dismiss NGN’s disclosure requests.

Prince Harry is suing The Sun’s publisher News Group Newspapers over claims of unlawful information gathering (REUTERS)

He pointed out the newspaper publisher had previously been happy to go to trial in January this year, without requests for further documents.

“The Claimant opposes the disclosure application. It is a classic ‘fishing expedition’”, he set out, in written submissions.

He called suggestions that the Duke had been responsible for delays were “monstrous”, adding: “It is the defendant that has failed to pursue disclosure in any form in a timely fashion”.

Mr Sherborne also reminded the court that millions of emails were previously deleted by the publisher.

The court heard the Duke is carrying out some of the disclosure duties himself, rather than leaving them to his solicitor.

He has resisted renewed access to a laptop which is in the US, saying that would be “disproportionate”.

And he insists there is no relevant material to be found in defunct social media accounts, former email accounts, and old computers.

The judge will hear argument from both sides before ruling on the disclosure applications.

The trial is set to take place at the High Court in January 2025.

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