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LONDON<\/strong> \u2013 Prince Harry<\/a> \u2032s longtime battle with the British tabloids reaches its climax Tuesday.<\/p>\n A judge in London\u2019s High Court will rule on the Duke of Sussex’s privacy invasion lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail, ending a trio of lawsuits that accused the news media of unlawfully snooping on his life.<\/p>\n Harry and six others are seeking substantial damages in the celebrity-studded lawsuit where the legal costs for the 11-week trial have been estimated at about 40 million pounds ($53.5 million).<\/p>\n Harry, singer Elton John and actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost are among those who accused Associated Newspapers Ltd. of tapping their phones, intercepting voicemails and obtaining personal information through deception.<\/p>\n The newspapers denied the allegations as \u201cpreposterous,\u201d insisting the roughly 50 articles at issue were based on lawful sources including friends, royal aides and publicists who offered information to reporters.<\/p>\n The verdict coincides with Harry\u2019s visit home to the U.K.<\/a>, but the court case has been overshadowed by the question of whether he will bring his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex<\/a>, and their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, for a rare visit to their grandfather, King Charles III.<\/p>\n Harry has long criticized the news business<\/p>\n Harry\u2019s self-proclaimed mission to reform the press for creating what he called a toxic environment is much deeper than headlines that documented his party boy youth and romantic ups and downs. His emotional testimony in February drove that point home.<\/p>\n The prince has blamed the press for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash in 1997 while being pursued by paparazzi in Paris, and for attacks on his wife that led the couple to leave royal life and move to the United States in 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cThey continue to come after me, they have made my wife\u2019s life an absolute misery,\u201d he said as he choked back tears in the witness box.<\/p>\n The phone hacking scandal that began in the 1990s and continued for more than a decade gave Harry the opportunity to break with royal family tradition and take his case to court. Three years ago, he became the first senior royal to testify in court in over a century.<\/p>\n Harry won a judgment<\/a> in 2023 that condemned the publishers of the Daily Mirror for \u201cwidespread and habitual\u201d phone hacking. Last year, Rupert Murdoch\u2019s flagship U.K. tabloid, The Sun, made an unprecedented apology<\/a> for intruding on his life for years, and agreed to pay substantial damages to settle his privacy invasion lawsuit<\/a>.<\/p>\n The case against the Daily Mail<\/p>\n Attorney David Sherborne said the Daily Mail and its sister publication, Mail on Sunday, used its journalists, freelance reporters and private eyes for \u201cclear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information gathering\u201d to snoop on his clients.<\/p>\n He connected payments to detectives with dates of articles in question to try to show, for example, how journalists tracked down information about Harry’s then-girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, and her travel plans.<\/p>\n