Prince Harry has received good news from London in his legal battle with News Group Newspapers (NGN), with the High Court rejecting an application to postpone the trial.

The Duke of Sussex has won the latest round of legal battles with publishers after a court insisted the trial should go ahead as planned in January.

There are just days left until Harry returns to the UK in May for his Invincible Game campaign. He is expected to hold key meetings with his father, King Charles, who has cancer, and other senior members of Britain’s royal family.

NGN has applied to postpone a trial over alleged illegal collection of information so the court can determine whether claims brought by King Charles III’s youngest son Harry and 41 others were made too late.

Judge Fancourt said doing so would have delayed a full trial for a further two years, incurring significant additional costs in what was already proving to be a “very expensive proceeding”.

“I think there is too little benefit at this stage in abandoning orderly preparations for trial on all the issues and going to trial on just one issue,” he told the court.

He said a January 2025 trial date had been set for November 2022 and it was too late for NGN to raise objections.

“To have the ruling overturned at such a late stage would be a very serious matter,” he said, noting that all existing parties had been “working on the case for many years.” The judge said extensive preparations had been made “at considerable expense” to have all issues heard in 2025.