Duke of Sussex believes he is right in his legal claims against the press

The Duke of Sussex has stood firm on his reasons for launching legal battles against parts of the British press saying that “they would presumably sue us” if his claims fail.

Harry, who believes he has been a victim of phone hacking, accuses parts of the media of “racism”, “cronyism” and of telling “lies” and that his father, the King, feels it is “probably a suicide mission” to try and change the press.

He also told ITV’s Tom Bradby in an interview promoting his tell-all memoir Spare he is still waiting for the outcome of some of his legal claims which were launched three years ago.

Harry said: “I left the country and for 12 – for 12 months it was relentless. So again, one of the reasons why I am moving the – the mission of changing the media landscape within the UK from being personal to my life’s work, a large part of that is down to the ongoing legal battles. Right?

“Specifically with phone hacking. That – I put in my claims over three years ago and I’m still waiting. So one might assume that a lot of this, from their perspective, is retaliation, and trying to intimidate me to settle, rather than take it to court and potentially may have to shut down.”

Mr Bradby explained that Harry has three cases “which are very rarely referred to against News Group which you know, may or may not come to court, you’ve got a case against the Mirror which may or may not come to court and you’ve – with others including Doreen Lawrence, Stephen Lawrence’s mum, – taken a case against The Mail.”

Harry is bringing privacy claims against News Group Newspapers, which publishes The Sun, and Mirror Group Newspapers, now Reach, which publishes The Mirror, over alleged phone hacking and unlawful information gathering.

Mr Bradby described the accusations in all the cases as “very grave” and the stakes as “very high”.

They include a strongly contested suggestion that the Daily Mail “hired private investigators to break into people’s houses to plant a listening device, I mean this is off the scale, they deny it absolutely”.

After being told that he would owe them “a pretty abject apology” if he is not right, Harry responded: “Well if it wasn’t – if I wasn’t wrong, they would presumably sue us.”

It was revealed in October that Harry along with Baroness Doreen Lawrence – the mother of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence – and Sir Elton John are among six people suing the publisher of The Daily Mail over alleged unlawful information-gathering at its titles.

A statement released by lawyers acting for the group, which also includes Sir Elton’s husband David Furnish and actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, said they are bringing claims for misuse of private information against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).

A spokesman for Associated Newspapers, who described the claims as “unsubstantiated and highly defamatory”, said at the time: “We utterly and unambiguously refute these preposterous smears which appear to be nothing more than a pre-planned and orchestrated attempt to drag the Mail titles into the phone hacking scandal concerning articles up to 30-years-old.”

Harry, who said he accepted there could be repercussions from putting in his legal claims, told Mr Bradby: “But what is more worrying is that those repercussions are so obvious, I guess, across the British press that there’s no one else – if they wanna hold us and the rich and powerful to account, and they wanna police society, then who’s policing them?

“That’s something that William and I have talked about for many, many years. Who is policing them?

“And I think, again, what’s happened to my wife and what’s happened to us happens to so many people on a daily basis, because of the British press. Because of the racism, because of – because of the cronyism, because of the lies, so you know, my father said to me that it was probably a suicide mission to try and change – to try and change the press.

“But you know, having spent 10 years in the Army I learnt a specific set of values, and if I see wrongdoing, I will be lured towards trying to resolve it.

“Especially when I’ve had the unique perspective that I have had, I’ve seen behind the curtain and you know, if I can’t continue to serve my country while based in the UK, for numerous different reasons, one because of lack of security, then I will continue to serve my country from abroad.”