BRITAIN: Britain's Prince Charles won a partial victory yesterday in a legal battle to keep his diaries private but may yet suffer the embarrassment of seeing more revealing extracts appear in print.
The prince was suing the Mail on Sunday newspaper for publishing parts of a journal covering a trip to Asia for the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China, during which he referred to Chinese officials as "appalling old waxworks".
The ruling, in London's High Court, bans the paper from printing more of the so-called Hong Kong journal but there must now be a further hearing to rule on possible publication of extracts from seven other of the prince's journals in the newspaper's possession.
Lawyers said the new hearing would be a "technicality", but it left open the possibility of further embarrassing revelations from the other journals emerging in court.
A lawyer for the newspaper said it would appeal against yesterday's judgement, which she said raised important press freedom issues.
"It cannot be legitimate for the prince to claim the right to engage in political controversy and at the same time deny the public the right to know that he is doing so," she told reporters outside the court.
Prince Charles's principal private secretary, Michael Peat, said he had the right to keep a diary and circulate it to close friends. "He enjoys writing and what he writes in due course will be thought of as important historical records," he said.