• Harry is suing Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Mail on Sunday, for libel.
• The article alleges he tried to keep hidden details of his legal battle to reinstate his police protection.
• Harry and Meghan’s lawyers argue that the article implies he lied and tried to manipulate public opinion.

Lawyers for Queen Elizabeth’s grandson, Prince Harry, said on Thursday that a newspaper article about his legal struggle with the British government over his security arrangements implied that he lied and tried to manipulate public opinion.

Harry is suing Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Mail on Sunday, for libel over a February piece alleging that he tried to keep hidden details of his legal battle to reinstate his police protection and that his advisers subsequently attempted to portray it in a good light.

The article was not deemed libelous by Associated Newspapers.

This is the latest legal squabble between Harry and Meghan and the newspaper group, showing their general hatred of the British tabloid press and its frequent criticism of the royal couple.

The purpose of Thursday’s preliminary hearing at the High Court in London was to ascertain what a reader would interpret as the story’s “natural and ordinary” meaning.

The “unremittingly negative” article, according to Harry’s lawyer Justin Rushbrooke, implied that the prince had lied in a statement in which he said he had always been willing to pay for police protection when in Britain, and that he had tried to manipulate the public by authorizing his “spin doctors” to issue false statements.

According to Rushbrooke, a reader would believe Harry tried to keep the court battle with the government hidden and that he expected the public to foot the bill for his safety.

The lawyer for the newspaper, Andrew Caldecott, said it would be a “quantum leap” to make such inferences, and that the piece “unequivocally” claimed that Harry’s public relations team, not the prince himself, was involved in putting out material that confused the public.

He claimed the story just reflected Harry’s initial request for a broad confidentiality order in connection with his legal battle with the government, a position he later agreed to ease.

The judge, Matthew Nicklin, stated that he will rule on the matter at a later time.

Last Friday, Harry, 37, and Meghan, 40, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, made their first public appearance together in Britain since they quit royal duties two years ago at a thanksgiving service for Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee, where they were met with cheers and some booing.

The couple moved to the United States, partly because Harry said the press was destroying his mental health, and now live in California with their two young children, son Archie and daughter Lilibet, who was named after the queen, her great-grandmother.

Meghan won a High Court case against the Mail on Sunday last year after the newspaper published excerpts from a handwritten letter she addressed to her divorced father in 2018.