Timeline of key events as Prince Harry phone hacking trial begins

The Duke of Sussex is among seven prominent individuals initiating legal action against the publisher of the Daily Mail, with a nine-week trial commencing on Monday.

The group, which includes Sir Elton John, his husband David Furnish, and campaigner Baroness Doreen Lawrence, alleges that Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) engaged in or commissioned unlawful activities.

These reportedly include hiring private investigators to install listening devices in cars, "blagging" private records, and accessing private phone conversations.

Politician Sir Simon Hughes, actress Sadie Frost, and Liz Hurley are also pursuing legal claims against the publisher, which has "vehemently" dismissed the "preposterous" allegations.

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Here is a timeline of the group’s claim against ANL:

October 6

Lawyers acting for the group issued legal claims against ANL.

In a statement, the lawyers claimed there was “compelling and highly distressing evidence” that the group had been “the victims of abhorrent criminal activity and gross breaches of privacy”.

ANL denied the allegations, describing them as “preposterous smears” and a “pre-planned and orchestrated attempt to drag the Mail titles into the phone-hacking scandal”.

March 27

The duke, Ms Frost and Sir Elton attended a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, where ANL sought to have the cases against it thrown out without a trial.

Harry’s appearance was believed to be the first time back in the UK since the late Queen’s funeral in September 2022.

In written submissions for the hearing, Adrian Beltrami KC said on behalf of ANL that the legal actions had been brought too late and were “stale”, with the publisher denying that unlawful information gathering took place at its newspapers.

He continued that the individuals had to prove they did not know earlier, or could not have discovered earlier, that they might have had a claim against ANL for alleged misuse of their private information.

Barrister David Sherborne, for the group, told the hearing that the unlawful acts in the claim include illegally intercepting voicemail messages, listening to live landline calls and obtaining medical records.

In written submissions, he said: “They range through a period from 1993 to 2011, even continuing beyond until 2018.”

Mr Sherborne also told the four-day hearing that Sir Elton and Mr Furnish were “outraged” and “mortified” over allegations that the landline of their Windsor home was tapped.

The barrister continued that Lady Lawrence believed the racist murder of her son, Stephen Lawrence, was “exploited” by the publisher.

Lady Lawrence alleged that her bank accounts and phone bills were monitored, that she was subject to “covert electronic surveillance” and that “corrupt payments” were made to serving police officers for confidential information, including to those investigating her son’s killing.

Mr Sherborne also said that the duke was “troubled that, through Associated’s unlawful acts, he was largely deprived of important aspects of his teenage years”.

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It also emerged at the hearing that an alleged confession and denial by private investigator Gavin Burrows over his role in the alleged unlawful information gathering were at the centre of the claims.

In one statement, signed in August 2021, Mr Burrows claimed to have targeted “hundreds, possibly thousands of people” through voicemail hacking, landline tapping and accessing financial and medical information for a journalist at the Mail on Sunday.

But in a later statement signed in March 2023, Mr Burrows said he wished “to make clear that I was never instructed or commissioned by (a journalist) or anyone at the Mail on Sunday or the Daily Mail to conduct unlawful information gathering on their behalf”.

In the more recent statement, he said he was not commissioned to gather information unlawfully on Harry, Sir Elton, Mr Furnish, Ms Frost, or Ms Hurley.

November 10

Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed ANL’s bid to have the claims thrown out without a trial, stating in a 95-page judgment that the publisher had “not been able to deliver a ‘knockout blow’ to the claims of any of these claimants”.

He concluded that each of the seven people in the claim had a “real prospect” of demonstrating that ANL concealed “relevant facts” that would have allowed them to bring a claim against the publisher earlier.

The duke, Lady Lawrence and Sir Elton said they were “delighted” by the ruling.

ANL said they “look forward” to establishing in court that the group had made “lurid” claims.

The publisher also welcomed the judge’s decision that unpublished ledgers given to the Leveson Inquiry into the practices and ethics of the British press could not be used without Governmental permission, calling it a “significant victory”.

November 21

Lawyers for the group said they planned to ask ministers for permission to use the confidential Leveson Inquiry documents, with Mr Sherborne telling a hearing that there was “no rationale” for ANL refusing to provide the “plainly relevant” documents.

Mr Beltrami said that ANL had rejected a request to hand over the ledgers and opposed a bid to ask a minister for access to them.

March 1

The then-Conservative government announced it would vary the Leveson Inquiry’s restriction on providing the documents, allowing them to be disclosed “for the purpose of the legal proceedings”.

In a statement, then-Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer and then-Home Secretary James Cleverly said the documents were “Daily Mail ledger cards recording payments to private investigators” and “The Mail on Sunday ledger cards recording payments to private investigators”.

They continued that it was not “necessary in the public interest to withhold these documents from any disclosure or publication”.

May 8

Dozens of journalists, including some national newspaper editors, were named in documents setting out the duke’s claim.

They included about 70 current or former journalists, including the editor-in-chief of The Sun, Victoria Newton, the editor of The Times, Tony Gallagher, and the editor of the Mail on Sunday, David Dillon, who were named in relation to their time at ANL titles.

Barristers for ANL said the duke’s case was “without foundation” and “an affront to the hard-working professional journalists whose reputations and integrity, as well as that of Associated itself, are wrongly traduced”.

November 26

The High Court heard that Lady Lawrence was “alerted” to a potential legal claim by a text from Harry.

In written submissions for a preliminary hearing, Catrin Evans KC, for ANL, said: “Litigation appears to have been contemplated by Baroness Lawrence almost immediately after the text was received by her.”

July 11

Mr Justice Nicklin rules that Harry’s lawyers must hand over documents related to alleged payments made for evidence in his claim.

Lawyers for ANL had asked the court at a hearing in May to order the group’s legal team to “search for and disclose any documents that relate to payments, royalties or inducements paid, provided or offered, or any demands or threats made, in order to obtain documents, information or other co-operation”.

The judge ruled that documents that could “support a case that a witness has been paid or offered other inducement for their evidence, whether directly or indirectly” should be disclosed.

He added: “In this case, the stance adopted by the claimants has been undermined by their inconsistent and incoherent approach to disclosure of documents relating to payments to potential witnesses and/or other inducements.”

October 1

The High Court is told that details of the Prince of Wales’s 21st birthday party could have been “blagged” by a private investigator.

Mr Sherborne told a hearing that an invoice dated from August 2003 was linked to a Daily Mail story from June that year, with “extensive” details of the event.

He also claimed that a record from a private investigator allegedly shows a journalist commissioning him to provide a “mobile phone conversion” related to the Princess of Wales, as well as phone numbers from a “family and friends” list.

Antony White KC, for ANL, said in written submissions that lawyers for the group of high-profile individuals had made “wholly unparticularised” allegations of unlawful information gathering that should not proceed to trial.

October 10

Mr Justice Nicklin refused a bid to have the allegation related to Kate added to the case, but allowed the group to use previous incidents of unlawful information gathering involving an ANL journalist while they were at a different paper in their claims.

He also ruled that allegations that the publisher commissioned “burglaries to order” could not go to trial, as they “cannot assist in the fair resolution of the claimants’ claims”.

November 11

Mr Burrows claimed his signature on a witness statement from August 2021 was a “forgery”, and that in September 2025, he told ANL that the contents of the earlier document were “substantially untrue”.

He added that he had “never” carried out work for the Mail on Sunday or the Daily Mail, apart from one job relating to Sir Richard Branson that “did not involve any illegal activity”.

November 26

Mr Justice Nicklin refuses a bid by the group’s lawyers to anonymise a witness known as “Berlin”, who was reportedly to give evidence in relation to Mr Burrows.

Mr Sherborne had told the court that Berlin feared threats and violence if his identity was revealed, but the judge found there was not “clear and cogent evidence that an anonymity order is necessary”.

The group’s lawyers said they planned to appeal against the ruling.