Why was Prince Harry's claim that Buckingham Palace had a secret deal with newspaper executives thrown out by Mr. Justice Fancourt who ruled it as implausible?

Prince Harry's phone-hacking claim against The Sun's publisher, News Group Newspapers, has faced a setback. The claim was thrown out by the judge, Mr. Justice Fancourt, due to an "extraordinary wrangle" concerning a supposed Buckingham Palace "secret agreement" that prevented Harry from bringing the case sooner.

Prince Harry arrives to give evidence at the Mirror Group Phone hacking trial on June 7, 2023

Harry had argued that a clandestine deal between palace courtiers and newspaper executives had hindered him from pursuing the case earlier. However, the judge ruled this claim as "implausible" and rejected it as the reason for the late claim. As a result, the phone-hacking element of Harry's claim was deemed "time barred" and struck out.

Nevertheless, the rest of Harry's case, which involves allegations of other illegal activities such as private investigators obtaining information about him, will continue, and a trial is scheduled for January.

The judge found Harry's evidence to be contradictory, as he claimed both a lack of knowledge about the hacking before 2018 and the existence of a "secret agreement" in 2012. The judge stated that it's not permissible to pursue alternative and inconsistent factual cases.

Harry's evidence for the secret agreement was considered weak, as it was based solely on his own testimony and lacked supporting evidence from others involved. The judge also noted that if the agreement were real, it would have required Harry and his brother to bring claims against The Sun at a later date, which would contradict the supposed intention of avoiding unwanted publicity.

Additionally, the judge pointed out that Harry could have discovered his legal case years earlier if he had made basic inquiries, considering he knew about the phone hacking as early as 2006 and had friends and employees who were already suing the newspaper group.

Despite the phone-hacking claims being thrown out, the case will proceed to trial on other claims of unlawful information gathering against Harry. The newspaper group, News Group Newspapers, will still face a high-profile trial next year concerning these other claims.