Prince Harry reveals ‘secret romance’ details
Prince Harry has disclosed private information about a former girlfriend, saying the relationship ended over fears their phone conversations were being recorded.
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Prince Harry has revealed that a relationship he had with a young woman in the early 2000s crumbled under the strain of intense scrutiny from phone hackers allegedly commissioned by the Daily Mail newspaper group.
The Duke of Sussex has claimed in documents submitted to the London High Court of Justice his brief relationship with Laura Gerard-Leigh broke down due to information gained via “illegal sources”.
The prince claims their “brief but private relationship” lasted only “a matter of months” and that he found the fact that journalists became aware of it “extraordinary”.
Prince Harry dated the stockbroker’s daughter, whose grandfather was a polo-playing friend of Prince Philip, while he was at Eton College. She went on to marry a financier and former Army captain.
Prince Harry, who is in London for the privacy case, alleges that she was targeted by a private detective, Gavin Burrows, who also intercepted her parents’ voicemail messages, a claim vociferously refuted by the publisher of the Daily Mail, Associated Newspapers Limited.
His complaint focused on an article published in The Mail on Sunday. “This article is about a then-new relationship between me and [the woman], including details about her visiting me at Eton, meeting up in private at Windsor and efforts to keep the relationship secret,” Prince Harry said in a witness statement.
The royal claimed that as a result of articles being printed about the couple and Ms Gerard-Leigh’s parents being “doorstopped”, their relationship “did not last long”.
ANL says the claims are “stale” and “preposterous” and dismisses all allegations of phone hacking and illegal behaviour.
The prince did not turn up for day three of the civil court case hearing against the newspaper publisher on Wednesday.
He is one in a group of prominent others including Sir Elton John, his husband, David Furnish, actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, who have brought a case against the newspaper group publisher Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) claiming they were phone hacked and information about their private lives were illegally obtained for the purpose of newspaper articles.
In documents submitted in court, Prince Harry says he feared another ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy, would be “harassed to death”.
In the submission, Prince Harry claimed when he and Ms Davy were on holidays together, the paparazzi would always know where they were.
The prince claims Associated Newspapers learned this information through “unlawful means”.
Recounting a trip to a private polo lodge in Argentina, he claims after Ms Davy spoke to another friend of his on the phone, the location they were staying in was “swarmed in photographers”.
He says this led to Ms Davy feeling like she was being “hunted” and feeling “shaken”.
The prince added it also caused him to be scared his then-girlfriend was going to be “chased and harassed to death”.
Prince Harry also claimed details of an intimate private phone call between him and Prince William were published following the publication of a picture of their dying mother in the Italian media.
He claims that an article in the Daily Mail made explicit reference to the phone call between the two princes, alleging that someone working for Associated Newspapers was “plainly listening in on calls”.
“To do that,” he added, “is simply shameful but to publish it is beyond cruel and an abuse of journalistic privilege.”
The hearing is due to conclude Thursday local time with a decision from Justice Nicklin expected at a later date.
ABHORRENT, EVIL’: ELTON’S SCATHING TESTIMONY
Meanwhile, music icon Sir Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, have a “paternal and protective” friendship with the Duke of Sussex, the singer’s husband told a hearing into alleged phone hacking and misuse of information against the Daily Mail newspaper publisher.
The couple are part of a group – along with Harry, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, former Liberal Democrat MP Sir Simon Hughes and actresses Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley – bringing claims over allegations Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over illegal or unlawful information-gathering.
The allegations – which are strenuously denied – include the hiring of private investigators to place listening devices inside cars and the accessing and recording of private phone conversations.
Lawyers for ANL, which is also the publisher of The Mail on Sunday and MailOnline, said the allegations are “firmly” denied and“ preposterous” and “stale” and have been brought too late as it made a bid to throw out the cases.
In his witness statement, which was released on Tuesday (UK time), Mr Furnish wrote about the friendship he and Sir Elton have with Harry.
“Our friendship with Prince Harry is very close and, just as it is with Elizabeth (Hurley), paternal and protective.
“Elton and I were great friends with his mother, who we loved dearly, and when she passed we wanted to do everything we could to give him safety and security, a space of confidence and protection.
“It has deeply upset Elton and I that our intentions were used against us and that the confidence and trust Harry placed in us was exploited and abused by The Mail’s callous activities,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sir Elton referred in his witness statement, also released on Tuesday, to the “exploitation of love, connection, trust and bonds” and “evil acts” they did not have a chance to detect or put a stop to.
He writes about the “violation” of their home and safety of their children and loved ones.
“The Mail’s approach to our case now and its use of our legal system in a way we believe it was never intended. It is wrong and unjust.
“But from a personal level, I have found The Mail’s deliberate invasion into my medical health and medical details surrounding the birth of our son Zachary abhorrent and outside even the most basic standards of human decency,” Sir Elton said in his statement.
The couple’s friend Elizabeth Hurley said in her witness statement that re-reading the “unlawful articles” published about her was “traumatic” and left her feeling her private life was “violated by violent intruders”.
“Nothing felt safe. Nothing feels safe now. The more I continue to discover through my own investigations about the methods The Mail used to violate me, I remain convinced there are others who were treated the same way but have no idea,” she said.
“I now know that those methods include the actual breaking and entering of homes. My nightmares becoming a depraved reality.”
Actress Sadie Frost said in her witness statement that stories that were published about her “violated” her.
She alleges that a device had been put on her landline to record calls and was “mortified” at the idea of her conversations being listened to, including talking to Jude Law about their divorce.
She said she had been “mentally very unwell” and that the phone had been a “lifeline” for her.
“The stories they wrote violated me, my friends and family, and my children who were still so small, and they made me believe that I could not trust anyone,” Ms Frost wrote in her statement.
“They were always written so close to home, like it was someone who knew me really well that was talking to the journalists. That is what I suspected at the time.
“I was mentally unwell and it was so hard to make sense of things and, instead, those articles just made things crumble even more.
“I am so angry that Associated did this to me and thought it was okay to profit from someone going through so much pain without a thought for me or my children and the suffering they were causing me us all.” (sic)
Referring to an article that appeared about the breakdown of her marriage with Mr Law, Ms Frost said it was a time when there was a stigma around mental health and she did not want the world knowing her private business.
“I began to feel that I could not openly speak to the doctors, my friends or my family about it otherwise it would somehow end up in Associated’s papers.
“I began to shut down. I stopped eating and started to lose a lot of weight. I felt suicidal. I hid, humiliated by what Associated were publishing about me.
“I was just trying to be a good mother and support the children during the divorce. Associated’s unlawful acts leading to this sort of story made my life so much more difficult and exacerbated my issues,” Ms Frost said.
ANL is making a bid to have the claims dismissed without a trial.
Adrian Beltrami KC, for the publisher, argued in written submissions the legal actions have been brought too late and that the cases were “largely inferential”.
The barrister has also said that unless lawyers for the people bringing the claim make an application, some aspects of the cases should be thrown out as they breach orders made by Lord Justice Leveson as part of the inquiry bearing his name into press standards.
PRINCE HARRY SLAMS FAMILY IN SHOCK TESTIMONY
Earlier, Prince Harry accused the royal family of keeping him in the dark over phone hacking so he didn’t “open a can of worms”, saying in sensational testimony to London’s High Court that he had been conditioned to “never complain, never explain”.
The witness statement blaming senior figures in the monarchy for withholding information came as Prince Harry’s privacy lawsuit was dealt a major blow; with key evidence revealed as “leaked” in violation of the strict privacy orders of a confidential judicial inquiry.
The Duke of Sussex said in the written comments, released at the end of the second day of the hearing, that he was brought up to accept the family rule of dignified silence, but that he couldn’t remain quiet after “racist” attacks against Meghan Markle.
“Following the death of my mother in 1997 when I was 12 years old and her treatment at the hands of the press, I have always had an uneasy relationship with the press,” he said. “However, as a member of the Institution the policy was to ‘never complain, never explain’.
“There was no alternative; I was conditioned to accept it. For the most part, I accepted the interest in my performing my public functions.”
Once he started dating Ms Markle, however, he became “increasingly troubled by the approach of not taking action against the press in the wake of vicious persistent attacks on, harassment of and intrusive, sometimes racist articles concerning Meghan.”
“The situation got worse” with Ms Markle’s pregnancy and the birth of their first child, Archie, he added.
After Prince Harry became aware that he “had a claim” to bring against British tabloid newspapers in 2018, he discovered “the Institution was without a doubt withholding information from me for a long time”.
“That has only become clear in recent years as I have pursued my own claim with different legal advice and representation,” he said.
Prince Harry said he eventually came to find out others connected to the royal family had brought phone hacking claims against the press, adding that “the bubble burst in terms of what I knew in 2020 when I moved out of the United Kingdom”.
“There was never any centralised discussion between us about who had brought claims as each office in the institution is siloed. There is this misconception that we are all in constant communication with one another but that is not true.”
Prince Harry’s comments were released alongside witness statements from his co-claimants, which include Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, and former MP Sir Simon Hughes.
David Furnish, the Canadian filmmaker married to Sir Elton John, said they were made to feel “impotent” in their own home by the alleged invasion of privacy.
“How can you protect yourself and your loved ones against an enemy you can’t see and that does not respect the bounds of the law or the boundaries of one’s private home?” He wrote. “Elton and I care about the world Zachary and Elijah [the couple’s sons] are growing up in. We strongly believe that The Mail’s illegal and highly distressing activities have no place in it.”
Elizabeth Hurley described in her witness statement how her phone was hacked by a private investigator, saying “Hugh (Grant) and I, and many others, were victims of this”.
“I felt sickened,” she said when learning her private conversations had been recorded, adding the investigator “had also stolen my financial information, my travel information, and my medical information when I was pregnant.”
Actress Sadie Frost felt “suicidal” after the publication of a “horrible” story about her failed marriage with Jude Law.
“I began to shut down. I stopped eating and started to lose a lot of weight. I felt suicidal,” she wrote.
Prince Harry said it was his “duty” to bring his claim against Associated Newspapers “because I love my country”, and that he’s deeply concerned about the “unchecked power, influence and criminality” of the publisher.
“I do not see why Associated should get away with something they have covered up and lied about for however many years,” Prince Harry said.
“Not only has [Associated] been acting outside the law, but it believes it is above it,” he added.
“If the most influential newspaper company can successfully evade justice, then in my opinion the whole country is doomed.”
MAJOR BLOW TO PRINCE HARRY PRIVACY CASE
Documents being used in the Duke of Sussex’s privacy case were themselves private financial records supplied to an inquiry into press standards more than a decade ago, the High Court heard.
As Prince Harry, 38, returned to the Royal Courts of Justice for the second day of his surprise London appearance, lawyers for Associated Newspapers argued that documents – allegedly showing payments to private investigators by the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday – are bound by the confidential requirements of the UK’s 2012 Leveson Inquiry.
The series of public hearings into media culture, practices and ethics came after revelations of phone hacking and illegal tapping.
Justice Matthew Nicklin, who is overseeing Prince Harry’s case, is “concerned” over who is responsible for the strict confidentiality undertakings ordered by Lord Justice Brian Leveson, who imposed publication restrictions on the documents submitted to the inquiry.
According to lawyers for ANL, the private documents were passed on to the lawyers of Prince Harry in violation of the Leveson Inquiry orders.
Prince Harry’s lawyer, David Sherborne, acknowledged the documents were confidential but argued they weren’t covered by orders imposed by Lord Justice Brian Leveson, adding that they were “highly relevant” and “plainly admissible”. He said they received the documents from a “confidential source” via another news website.
Mr Sherborne was a key player in the 2012 Leveson Inquiry as the barrister representing victims of the press, and Justice Nicklin said he was bound by his personal undertakings to “uphold your obligations” of the confidentiality agreements.
Prince Harry and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, 70, were the two major celebrities to return for day two, sharing a hug in the courtroom as proceedings continued. The other claimants are Sir Elton John, 76, and his husband David Furnish, 60; the actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, both 57; and MP Sir Simon Hughes, 71.
The group claims they were victims of hacking and “blagging”, a term referring to the gathering of private information without consent through social engineering. In this case, it is alleged blagging was used to acquire medical and financial records.
PRINCE HARRY’S DEFIANT SHOW
The Duke of Sussex returned to the Royal Courts of Justice for the second day of a High Court hearing over multiple privacy claims brought against the Daily Mail newspaper group in a defiant show of his convictions over privacy.
Prince Harry appeared jovial waving to onlookers camped in the rain as he arrived at the London Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday for day two of a preliminary hearing in which he and prominent individuals are suing publisher Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) over alleged phone hacking and misuse of private information.
The fifth in line to the throne is joined in his claim by singer Elton John and partner David Furnish, actors Sadie Frost and Elizabeth Hurley, and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, in claiming ANL phone hacked and misused private information to gain insights into their lives for the aim of publishing articles.
The publisher is making a bid to have the claims dismissed without a trial and has denounced the allegations as “preposterous smears”.
On Monday the prince was sat in the public gallery of the courtroom scribbling notes in a small black book as his lawyers claimed in court documents he was “deprived of important aspects of his teenage years” by the alleged unlawful actions of Associated Newspapers that left him full of “suspicion and paranoia” when articles containing information known only to his trusted circle were printed.
In the “Particulars of Claim” setting out the Duke’s case, his lawyers claim he was “shocked and appalled that Associated used their journalistic power and privilege to commit the unlawful acts without any legitimate justification and solely to compete with other tabloid newspapers for profit.”
“The claimant is horrified that Associated has to date successfully avoided proper scrutiny for its conduct through its cover-up and that it has behaved as if it is above the law,” the document states.
“In particular, suspicion and paranoia was caused by Associated’s publication of the unlawful articles: friends were lost or cut off as a result and everyone became a ‘suspect’, since he believed by the way the articles were written that those close to him were the source of this information being provided to Associated’s newspapers.”
The High Court was also told Sir Elton and partner David Furnish’s landline at their home in Windsor was tapped by a private investigator on the instructions of Associated Newspapers Limited.
David Sherborne, the lawyer for the group of individuals, said in the written submission: “They are also mortified to consider all their conversations, some of which were very personal indeed, were tapped, taped, packaged and consumed as a commercial product for journalists and unknown others to pick over, regardless of whether or not they were published.
“The hurt remains the same, knowing that their lives have been treated as a commodity and their precious, priceless moments of privacy degraded in this way.”
The High Court heard Sir Elton and his husband Mr Furnish had not seen a copy of their first child’s birth certificate before it was unlawfully obtained by ANL.
Mr Sherborne told the court: “Worse still was Associated’s unlawful obtaining of their first child’s birth certificate, before they had even seen a copy themselves.”
A private investigator acting on behalf of ANL hacked actor Liz Hurley’s phone, placed a “sticky window mini-microphone” outside her home and bugged ex-boyfriend Hugh Grant’s car to unlawfully obtain information about her finances, travel plans and medicals during her pregnancy, the High Court was told.
Prince Harry has positioned himself as the self appointed poster boy of privacy cases and said in a recent interview: He declared in a recent interview it has become his “life’s work” to change the media landscape.
He is spearheading three separate litigations against British tabloid newspapers – Daily Mail, The Sun and The Mirror, all of which pivot on the alleged use of phone hacking and bugging devices to illegally obtain information for stories.
The Duke of Sussex is one of a handful of prominent people to bring the claims, which the newspapers strenuously deny.
Many claimants have settled out of court because the sums offered mean they can’t afford not to.
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Originally published as Prince Harry reveals ‘secret romance’ details
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