Prince Harry is set to return to the U.K. as his legal battle continues.

The Duke of Sussex is set to go up against News Group Newspapers (NGN) — which owns The Sun — in court starting this month. Harry, 40, previously accused the media company of allegedly using unlawful information gathering tactics.

Hello! Magazine reported on Tuesday, January 7, that when Harry flies home he won’t be accompanied by wife Meghan Markle. The publication noted that she will likely stay in California with their kids, Archie, 5, and Lilibet, 3.

NGN previously admitted to phone hacking at the News of the World, which closed in 2011. They’ve since claimed that there was no wrongdoing at The Sun.

Prince Harry‘s case against News Group Newspapers will go to trial early next year — without his phone hacking claims. London’s High Court ruled on Thursday, July 27, that Harry’s lawsuit accusing NGN, which owns The Sun, can move forward, but Judge Timothy Fancourt threw out the phone hacking allegations for being too old. Fancourt […]

In an April 2023 court filing, Harry alleged that his brother, Prince William, settled with NGN for “a very large sum” in 2020. He also claimed that the royal family had a “secret agreement” with the media company preventing any members from filing lawsuits. (NGN has since denied this claim.)

Judge Timothy Fancourt ruled last July that Harry’s case could move forward solely on the allegations of unlawful information gathering. His phone hacking claims fell outside the six-year time frame to bring the case. The judge also stated that Harry failed to provide evidence of the alleged “secret agreement.” The trial date was eventually set for January 2025. (The hearing is set to last for eight weeks.)

This is hardly the first time Harry is going up against the U.K. media. He was part of a group that sued Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which owns the Daily Mail, for allegedly hacking into celebrities’ voicemails as a way to obtain personal information. He made a major statement while testifying in June 2023, making him the first royal family member to take the stand in 130 years. By December 2023, a judge ruled in Harry’s favor. Court documents obtained by Us at the time revealed that the judge found “sufficient proof” that MGN “engaged in unlawful information gathering, including phone hacking.”

Since stepping down as a senior working royal in 2020, Prince Harry hasn’t been shy about standing up for himself — and has attempted to do so through several lawsuits. Perhaps most famously, the Duke of Sussex has fought against the fact that he and his wife, Meghan Markle, lost state-funded police protection during United […]

Harry spoke candidly about his ongoing legal battle during last month, noting that his time in court is about “accountability” at the New York Times’s DealBook Summit.

“They’ve settled because they’ve had to settle,” he said of those who came before him. “So therefore, one of the main reasons for seeing this through is accountability, because I’m the last person that can actually achieve that.”