Prince Harry accepted an apology and compensation on Monday from the editor of the British tabloid The Mail on Sunday and its online version, MailOnline, in a defamation suit related to articles about his relationship with the British armed forces.
Harry sued Associated Newspapers for defamation over two articles published in October that claimed he had snubbed the Royal Marines after stepping down as royal senior.
The articles claimed that Harry “had not come into contact” with the force since his last appearance as an honorary marine in March, and that military leaders were considering replacing him as captain-general of the Royal Navy.
Harry served for a decade in the British army. His lawyers said in court documents that he was “frustrated and sad” because the articles would diminish his credibility with veterans.
Harry and his wife, Meghan, stepped down as royalty and moved to the United States in early 2019. Their honorary military titles were suspended and were due to be reviewed in March as part of the monarchy review of the departure arrangements of the couple .
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Lawyer Jenny Afia, representing Harry, said the publisher accepted that the allegations that he had turned his back on her by force were false.
The articles were “unfounded, false and defamatory” and “constituted not only a personal attack on the duke’s character, but also wrongly questioned his service to this country,” said Afia.
She said that Harry was “proud to have served in the British armed forces for 10 years on behalf of Her Majesty” and “has maintained active links with those forces ever since and will continue to do so in the future”.
After the brief remote hearing, a spokesman for Harry said his “commitment to the military community is unquestionable”.
The Mail on Sunday published an apology in December, but it was not enough to stop the process.
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Harry will donate the damage to the Invictus Games Foundation, a charity for wounded or sick military men he founded, she added. The amount of the damages was not disclosed.
Separately, Meghan is also suing Associated Newspapers for breach of privacy and copyright infringement in articles that published parts of a letter she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle, after her marriage to Harry in 2018.