‘Wasting time’: Prince Harry blasted for court no-show
Day one of the court case where Prince Harry failed to appear has concluded with bombshell remarks about the Duke of Sussex’s mother, girlfriends and private life.
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Day one of the court case where Prince Harry failed to appear has concluded with bombshell remarks about the Duke of Sussex’s mother, girlfriends and private life.
The Prince’s highly anticipated court showdown with the British press fell flat when he failed to turn up — to the annoyance of the judge and defence lawyer.
The High Court judge expressed surprise that the Duke of Sussex did not appear in court at the opening of his claim against the publisher of the Daily Mirror on Monday, UK time.
Instead, Prince Harry flew from Los Angeles only on Sunday evening after having spent the day celebrating the second birthday of daughter Princess Lilibet, the court was told.
Barrister David Sherborne, representing the Duke, concluded his opening address by stating how during 1996 and 2011, every aspect of the Prince’s life was “invaded” by the use of unlawful methods.
“It is the use of these methods that has brought him here, not some vendetta against the press generally,” he said.
“He is here because although he regards himself as any other victim, whether high profile or not, because he drives sales.”
The barrister said that by bringing this claim, the Duke had been able to “focus the attention that comes with his position” on such activity.
“It is bringing others to account.”
Mirror Group Newspapers lawyer Andrew Green KC, rebutted Prince Harry’s claim stating that there was no evidence that the Duke’s phone was hacked even once by MGN journalists.
“The defendant’s position is that there is simply no evidence that the Duke of Sussex was ever hacked, certainly that he was ever hacked on a habitual basis,” he told the court.
“Not one person who has come forward to admit phone hacking or witnessed it says that the Duke was ever hacked by any of the defendant’s titles,” he said.
The barrister added that the Metropolitan Police had also never suggested to the Duke that he was the victim of hacking by anyone at MGN.
Mr Green later said the Duke faced “a very difficult starting point for the claimant proving he was habitually hacked”.
The barrister said Scotland Yard had investigated the hacking of royal households and the Duke of Sussex was not told by police that he was the victim of phone hacking from MGN.
The Duke of Sussex was actually at the centre of the Metropolitan Police Service’s investigation into phone hacking, despite that, no one at MGN was interviewed, let alone arrested and charged,” Mr Green said.
Mr Green said that many of the stories involved information already in the public domain, some that were put out by the Royal household, some by the Duke himself and some obtained from confidential sources.
He said it was “quite extraordinary” that the judge had been asked to infer the stories had been obtained unlawfully.
PRINCE HARRY A NO-SHOW ON DAY ONE OF COURT CASE
Earlier, Prince Harry was blasted for “wasting time” after failing to show up at court.
The Duke of Sussex is now due to appear in the witness box on Tuesday where he will accuse the British media of phone hacking and illegal intrusion into his private life.
In testifying against Mirror Group Newspapers, he will become the first senior royal in 130 years to give evidence in court.
The Duke’s no-show on Monday caused a headache for his legal team, who were left explaining that he would not be giving evidence in London as he only left Los Angeles on Sunday night after prioritising celebrations for his daughter’s second birthday.
Mr Green said the royal was “wasting time” by not being available to give evidence.
“Absolutely extraordinary – we were told just last week that he is not available for day one of his own trial,” he said.
Mr Sherborne arrived in court to argue that in 33 newspaper articles in the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and The People between 1996 and 2010, a private investigator was hired to glean sensitive and personal information about the royal’s private life.
The lawyer said Prince Harry had flown in from Los Angeles but added: “He is in a different category from the three other claimants due to his travel and security arrangements.
“It was never anticipated that the openings would not take the whole day.”
Mr Justice Fancourt replied he was “surprised” Prince Harry had not turned up for day one of his own trial.
“It was anticipated that they might — which is why I directed that the first witness should be available.”
The judge indicated that he would make the court — and the Duke — sit for longer hours on Tuesday and Wednesday, if necessary.
The court discussed some of the disputed newspaper stories about Prince Harry highlighting just how bizarre life in the royal enclave is.
Getting sick at school, a row with his brother, worries about girlfriends have become news stories written about for public consumption.
Many of the articles the Duke of Sussex has complained about concern his former girlfriend, Chelsy Davy.
The intense press scrutiny led to the young couple splitting, Mr Sherbourne said.
It also caused their circle of friends to become smaller, both losing friends unnecessarily, as well as bouts of depression for Prince Harry.
Referring to an article from The People in April 2005 which said Prince Harry was besotted with the blonde South African and details emotional phone calls to her, Mr Sherbourne said it was, “The most embarrassing thing which could be put in a newspaper for a 19-year-old boy,” he said.
“How little chance this relationship was given because of this...constant exposure.
“Your lordship will notice how young he was - little more than a child - as was Ms Davy. It was as if they were never alone.”
When Prince Harry gives evidence in the High Court, it will be under the “Dieu et Mon Droit” royal coat of arms, which is the motto of the monarch, his father.
Mr Sherborne asked the High Court to make “adverse findings” against the Mirror Group where it has chosen not to call journalists as witnesses to explain their sources for stories on Prince Harry.
“It is … important that journalists are not being called to give evidence about the articles that they wrote,” he said.
“We say that there are a number of consequences that flows from that.
“Without a journalist coming along to give evidence, then the presumption of widespread and unlawful activity … cannot be displaced.”
Giving evidence in person in the hacking trial will have big risks for Prince Harry.
“This isn’t like taking questions from Oprah Winfrey in a celebrity interview,” royal writer and journalist Robert Jobson said.
“It is a hostile encounter with a highly-skilled cross-examiner armed with a ton of techniques to undermine your credibility.
“Giving evidence is daunting … and cross-examination is far more often traumatic than cathartic,” he says.
“Harry should never be there,” he says, arguing that the royal family should rise above such fights.
Mr Sherborne said it was “obvious” stories about Prince Harry’s private life drove newspaper sales.
He referenced an admission by Mirror Group Newspapers of one instance of unlawful information gathering in relation to the Duke.
The court previously heard that a private investigator was instructed by an MGN journalist at The People to unlawfully gather information about Prince Harry’s activities at the Chinawhite nightclub on one night in February 2004.
MGN apologised and said it would never be repeated.
Mr Sherborne said that Prince Harry was “one of the most written about individuals in this period”, and the suggestion that there was just one instance of unlawful interception at just one of the group’s newspapers was “plainly implausible”.
Instead, he contended that this would have happened to Prince Harry on “multiple occasions”.
He said Harry’s number was found in the PalmPilot phone of Nick Buckley, who was previously head of news at the Sunday Mirror, and was described to the court as a “prolific hacker”.
Mr Sherborne showed the court a November 2001 story about Prince Harry being sidelined from school rugby with a back injury.
The Duke’s lawyers say that the article detailing doctors’ advice to the young prince, is a breach of medical confidentiality.
“We say [it has] the telltale signs of unlawful information gathering,” said Mr Sherbourne, adding that the journalist who wrote it can be linked to payments to private investigators.
Mirror Group says the supposedly private information in the story would have been known in Eton, where Harry was a student, and the story came from a confidential school source.
HACKING, INFORMATION SOWED ‘MISTRUST’ IN BROTHERS’ RELATIONSHIP
The relationship between the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex started to “erode” because of unlawful information gathering, it was suggested in the High Court.
Mr Sherborne, said “mistrust” between the brothers may have been sowed in 2003 when Mirror Group Newspapers published a story about an alleged disagreement between them.
Mr Sherborne said the a story, published in December that year, was about a reported dispute between the Princes over whether to meet former royal butler Paul Burrell, who they had publicly accused of betraying their mother.
According to the article in The People, the brothers had clashed midway through Harry’s year abroad, while a source had told the tabloid newspaper the men were at “loggerheads”.
“Even at this very early formative stage the seeds of discord between these two brothers are starting to be sown.
“Brothers can sometimes disagree but once it is made public in this way and their inside feelings revealed in the way that they are, trust begins to be eroded. One can see how the mistrust can set in from an early age, exactly because of this type of activity.”
PRINCESS DIANA ‘HUGE TARGET’ FOR MEDIA
Letters exchanged between Princess Diana and close friend TV entertainer Michael Barrymore show she was hacked by Mirror journalists under the editorship of Piers Morgan, the High Court heard.
Mr Sherborne read out a letter in which Diana said she was “devastated” to hear the Mirror was telephoning her office to ask about “six meetings” between the pair.
“Nobody knew about our conversations/phone call. How deeply sorry I am [that] what I considered to be a private matter has become public property,” she writes.
Mr Sherborne argues that “plainly the Daily Mirror has been listening in to the voicemail messages” between the pair.
Mr Sherbourne said Diana was a “huge target” for MGN’s newspapers and that unlawful activities in relation to her would have also affected Harry.
“It is part of our case that the interception of her messages would necessarily have involved obtaining information about the young prince,” he told the court.
Former Mirror editor Piers Morgan referred to hearing rumours about the meetings between Diana and Michael Barrymore in his book, The Insider, because journalists heard private messages, Mr Sherborne argued.
He also said a letter to Mr Barrymore from Diana in June 1997, two months before her death, “demonstrates the impact of these activities”.
Mr Sherborne said Diana wrote to Mr Barrymore saying she had not heard from him and hoped his silence was “good news”, adding: “I have had a nightmare time with the tabloids.”
The barrister added: “Mr Barrymore is so frightened off that he does not contact Princess Diana and this is the isolation that this activity causes.”
He read out two letters from Diana to Mr Barrymore, which referred to meetings between them, and in one of the letters Diana referred to being “devastated” to learn the Daily Mirror had called her office about him and their meetings.
In the letter, Diana said she had not told anyone about the meetings. Mr Sherborne said: “We say it is plainly that the Daily Mirror has been listening to the voicemail messages and that is how they knew of the secret and highly sensitive meetings between Princess Diana and poor Mr Barrymore.”
WHY PRINCE HARRY’S TRIAL IS HISTORIC
The Duke is the first senior royal to step into the witness box since Edward VII
testified in part of a divorce case in 1870 and 20 years later in a slander trial over a card game before he became king.
Harry is among more than 100 people suing MGN – publisher of the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People tabloids – over alleged unlawful activities between 1991 and 2011.
The claimants include celebrities and people connected to public figures.
They allege journalists or private investigators commissioned by them carried out phone-hacking on an “industrial scale”, obtained their private details by deception and carried out other illicit acts to find out information about them.
Senior editors and executives knew and approved of the behaviour, their lawyers say.
MGN is contesting the claims and denies senior figures were aware of wrongdoing. It also argues some of the lawsuits were brought too late.
The Duke of Sussex, the younger son of King Charles, was selected at an earlier hearing as one of four test cases for the trial which began on May 10.
He and his father are not likely to meet on this occasion, with reports King Charles will be holidaying at one of his homes in rural Transylvania.
Harry’s last visit to the UK was a whirlwind trip for his father’s coronation.
According to reports, the Prince spent just 28 hours on home soil and did not meet up with any family members.
It comes as the furore over the controversial royal’s US visa escalates.
The US government will appear in a federal court on Tuesday local time to answer questions regarding Harry’s visa application after he admitted to using illegal drugs in his memoir, Spare.
The Heritage Foundation, a Washington DC-based conservative think-tank, is suing Joe Biden’s administration to force officials to release the Duke’s immigration files.
The organisation wants to know how the prince managed to get into the US, after he revealed in his bombshell memoir – as well as in multiple TV interviews promoting the book – to having previously used cocaine, cannabis and psychedelic mushrooms.
US authorities have so far refused to make the 38-year-old royal’s visa application public.
A decision to unseal immigration records could have implications for Harry’s status in the US given an admission of drug use can see a visa application rejected.
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