Prince Harry takes tabloid press to court

Following similar action by his wife, Britain's Prince Harry has issued legal proceedings against the owners of The Sun and Daily Mirror newspapers.

The move, confirmed late Friday, comes after Meghan Markle also launched a separate legal case against the Mail last Sunday for alleged breaches of privacy and copyright infringement after the paper decided to publish a private letter from her to her estranged father after her marriage to Harry in 2018.

Harry's decision to ratchet up the couple's war with the U.K. media, by taking two major publications to court over alleged phone hacking, seems to be part of a concerted strategy to tackle the press head on. It is still unclear what the phone hacking charges relate to, but with a six-year limit on claims, the alleged offenses cannot have taken place before that.

In a statement released during the royal couple's tour of South Africa, Harry made a strongly worded attack on the media, comparing the way his late mother, Princess Diana, was hounded by the tabloid press and the way his wife is now being treated. He is apparently concerned that his family's life not be determined by the same forces as those that plagued his mother many years ago.

He wrote: "Though [my] action may not be the safe one, it is the right one … I've seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces."