Prince Harry Is a No-Show on Day 1 of London Tabloid Trial, Set to Become First Royal to Testify in 130 Years

Prince Harry did not — as had been widely expected — appear at a court in London on Monday, where he’s set to make history this week as the first royal to testify in over a century.

Much to the disappointment of the assembled photographers, the Duke of Sussex failed to arrive at the High Court for the first day of the first of his five pending legal cases, most centered around battles with British tabloids. Opening statements were scheduled to be made Monday, with the royal set to take the witness stand Tuesday.

Reports said that Prince Harry had instead stayed in Los Angeles to attend his daughter Lilibet’s second birthday party. Media reports also noted that the judge had asked for him to be in court ready to give evidence as early as Monday, in case the opening arguments finished earlier than expected.

Prince Harry is suing Mirror Group Newspapers for damages, claiming journalists at its titles, which also include the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, were linked to methods including phone-hacking, gaining information by deception and use of private investigators for unlawful activities.

The last senior royal to give evidence was Edward VII, who testified as a witness as part of a divorce case in 1870 and 20 years later in a slander trial over a card game. Both were before he became king. Edward VII was the great-grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II, Harry’s grandmother.

In addition to Mirror Group Newspapers, Harry is suing Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, and Associated Newspapers Ltd., which owns the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.

The claims are similar: that journalists and people they employed listened to phone messages and committed other unlawful acts to snoop on Harry and invade his privacy.

In a sign of how much the cases matter to him, Harry attended several days of hearings in March in the case against the Mail publisher.

Several celebrities with similar allegations have also filed claims being heard alongside Harry’s, including Hugh Grant in the News Group case, and Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley in the Associated Newspapers case.

Associated Newspapers “vigorously denies” the claims. News Group has apologized for News of the World’s hacking but The Sun does not accept liability or admit to any of the allegations, according to spokespeople.

Both publishers argued during High Court hearings this spring that the lawsuits should be thrown out because Harry and the others failed to bring them within a six-year time limit.

The lawyer representing Harry and other claimants said they should be granted an exception because the publishers lied and concealed evidence that prevented them from learning of the covert acts in time to meet the deadlines.

At the outset of the proceedings, Mirror Group appeared to fall on its sword, acknowledging instances when its newspapers unlawfully gathered information. It apologized in court papers and said Harry and two of the other three claimants in the case were due compensation.

But the admission involving Harry — the hiring of a private eye to dig up unspecified dirt for an article about his nightclubbing — wasn’t among the nearly 150 articles between 1995 and 2011 for which he claimed Mirror Group reporters used phone hacking and other illegal methods to gather material. The trial is focusing on 33 of those stories.

Prince Harry’s lawyer, David Sherborne, said unlawful acts by reporters and editors at the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People were “widespread and habitual” and carried out on “an industrial scale.” He pointed the finger at management, in particular TV personality Piers Morgan, a former Daily Mirror editor.

Morgan has publicly denied involvement in phone hacking, as has Mirror Group in its court submissions. Mirror lawyer Andrew Green said a substantial proportion of the articles at issue involved a “breathtaking level of triviality” and that with the exception of a few instances of unlawful information gathering, the company’s reporters had used public records and sources to legally obtain information.