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Prince Harry’s trial with Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloid publishers got off to a false start on Tuesday as a judge refused both sides permission to delay its opening and continue eleventh-hour settlement talks.
Instead, Mr Justice Timothy Fancourt ordered lawyers for the Duke of Sussex, co-Claimant Lord Watson and Defendants News Group Newspapers (NGN) to go to the Court of Appeal after rejecting their applications for a temporary adjournment in remarkable scenes at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
Court 30 filled and emptied twice during a morning session in which assembled Press and public had been anticipating explosive opening statements from the Duke’s barrister David Sherborne setting out the details of the alleged concealment and destruction of evidence by the publishers of The Sun and the defunct News of the World, which the company denies.
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However, Mr Sherborne instead requested an hour’s adjournment – which was granted – followed by a further extension until after lunch, which the judge reluctantly agreed, in order to progress possible settlements.
Yet when this was followed by new requests in the afternoon for a further two-hour delay – on the basis of time differences with California, where the Duke lives, and other undisclosed matters – Mr Justice Fancourt declined a request from Anthony Hudson KC, for NGN, for a private conversation “in chambers”, saying: “In this, of all cases, I am not going to start having secret meetings about what is going on behind the scenes.”
Dismissing arguments that a “very substantial sum” of costs would be triggered by the trial’s formal opening statements at a time when settlement appeared still to be possible, Fancourt said: “I do not regard that as a relevant consideration, much less a ground for appeal.”
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Dispatching the legal teams to the Court of Appeal, a brisk five-minute walk from Court 30 at the Rolls Building, where the eight-week trial is due to be decided, he added: “I refuse permission to appeal. I cannot of course prevent the parties going to the Court of Appeal – I am not going to stand in the way of access to justice.”
The Appeal outcome was unknown at the time of publication but the trial is now expected to open tomorrow at 10am.