Prince Harry brought phone hacking trial to end Meghan Markle ‘intrusion’
Prince Harry says he brought his phone hacking case to stop “intrusion and hate” as he recalls how claims of a strip club encounter rocked his ex-girlfriend.
World
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Prince Harry launched his phone hacking claim to stop the “abuse and intrusion” aimed at him and his wife Meghan Markle, he told the High Court on the second day of giving evidence in his phone hacking case.
Asked when he first approached solicitors to bring a claim against Mirror Group Newspapers, the Duke of Sussex said it came about when talking about ways to protect his then new wife.
“I think it was a discussion about how to find a way to stop the abuse and intrusion that was coming against me and my wife … without relying on the institution’s lawyers,” he said.
Prince Harry claimed that his phone was habitually hacked over the course of 15 years and there was an “an industrial scale” destruction of evidence.
When asked by his lawyer David Sherbourne KC how he found being questioned before the media and public about his private life, he Duke of Sussex became emotional.
Appearing flustered and fiddling with his suit, Prince Harry said: “It’s a lot.”
Finishing his examination, Mr Sherborne asked: “This is a very public courtroom, with the media watching, how has that made you feel?”
“It’s a lot,” Prince Harry repeated.
The Duke admitted on the second day of giving evidence in his trial that he found reliving stories in articles about ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy “as distressing for me as it is for her”.
He accused Mirror Group Newspaper of “probably paying” someone at London lap dancing club Spearmint Rhino to reveal an encounter with a blonde dancer which led to three blazing phone rows with Ms Davy.
Referring to the article in The People: ‘Chel shocked’ (April 9 2006), he said,“At this point knowing that my girlfriend’s number was bizarrely in the hands of Mirror journalists they would have access to her call data,” Harry said, suggesting that they got the story from analysing this data.
“It’s very suspicious that they had her number, I don’t believe she would give Mirror Group or any journalist her number,” he adds.
He told the court he “never” discussed with the Palace details of his relationships in relation to an article published by the People in 2007 about the couple’s romance in crisis.
“Everything that is attributed to a Palace source I believe is obtained unlawfully because I never spoke to anyone about my relationship with my girlfriend because that was private,” he said.
“The suspicious part of it is attributing quotes to a Palace source that either doesn’t exist or certainly doesn’t have any information about me or my girlfriend,” he added, suggesting it was all obtained unlawfully from voicemail.
He insisted a the Sunday Mirror titled, ‘Hooray Harry’s dumped’ (Nov 11 2007), detailing the breakdown of his romance with Ms Davy, could only have been obtained by illegal means because, “I’m not sure how anyone would have known we had broken up because again, we didn’t talk about this regularly,” he said.
Harry said he found it “hurtful to say the least”.
“Going through it again now - ‘Hooray Harry is Dumped’ was hurtful to say the least, that such a private moment was turned into a bit of a laugh,”he said.
HARRY CLAIMS HE WAS HACKED DAILY
Accusing the Mirror Group of hacking and using illegal methods to glean information about his private life between 1996 and 2011, the Duke of Sussex said, “It could have been happening on a daily basis, I simply don’t know.”
Asked if he was aware of any evidence to show this, the Prince replied: “No, that’s part of the reason I’m here, my lord”.
Questioned by Mr Sherbourne about the Mirror Group’s claim that there was no call data relating to the Prince, he said: “I believe they would have gone to extreme lengths to cover their tracks.”
“There was industrial scale destruction of evidence of unlawful information gathering,” he added during his second day in the witness box.
Former Mirror royal reporter and assistant news editor Jane Kerr insisted services the paper used to obtain information were lawful.
“I assumed obtaining phone numbers was totally lawful,” she told the High Court from the witness box as Prince Harry looked on.
In his determined High Court bid to hold the publisher “accountable” for what he says is illegal intrusion into his private life, Prince Harry insisted medical details about an ongoing knee injury published in an article The People newspaper in May 2015 entitled “Harry Carry” could only have been obtained illegally.
The British royal accused Mirror Group Newspapers of paying a private detective $270 to illegally obtain information for an article that claimed he was given “soft treatment” over the injury due to his royal status when he was a cadet at a military academy.
“I believe at the same time that my number was also in Nick Buckley’s (a news editor) palm pilot, and he was a prolific hacker,” the Duke said, addressing the publisher’s lawyer, Andrew Green KC.
The article reported particular information about the Prince being let off gruelling runs at Sandhurst due to his royal status to the “fury” of other cadets.
Mr Green denied payment for contribution to this article and said that “much of” the information came from a confidential source who “specialised in royal matters”.
They claim there had been “numerous” previous reports about his ongoing knee injury.
The Prince said he failed to understand how his knee injury when he was 20 was in the public interest, saying, “An injury is only of public interest if it’s life-threatening”.
“I don’t believe it affected the wellbeing of society,” the Duke said.
“It was in reference to while I was at Sandhurst and the distrust I ended up having with the medical staff as a result of this..,” he added.
Prince Harry said the story was “littered with inaccuracies” since he was the only cadet allowed a mobile phone when the story claimed he was emailing then girlfriend Chelsy Davy every day.
“I was one of the few cadets that was allowed my mobile phone at night when everyone else had theirs taken away in the first five weeks,” he clarified.
“It’s distressing going through them (the articles) again,” he tells the court.
“Yes, I believe so,” the Duke responded when asked whether he was claiming this article involved phone hacking.
He said the reward for journalists who hacked phones outweighed the risk of getting caught.
Discussing two News of the World articles published in 2006 that were the result of intercepted voicemails and that led to the police investigation into phone hacking around the royal family, he said: “I think there was risk right from the beginning.
“I believe the risk is worth the reward for them”.
The Duke admitted he would feel injustice if his claims were not accepted
Asked by Mr Green if he was aware that there was no call data from Mirror journalists linked to Prince Harry’s phone, Harry said “burner phones” explained this.
“If the court found that you were never hacked by any MGN journalist, would you be relieved or disappointed?” the lawyer then asked.
Harry responded: “I’m not entirely sure whether I would be relieved or disappointed – I believe phone hacking was at an industrial scale at all three of the papers at the time and that is without a doubt.”
“I would feel some injustice if it wasn’t accepted,” the Duke added.
“So you want to have been phone hacked?” Mr Green asked.
“Nobody wants to be phone hacked, my lord,” Harry responded.
PRINCE ‘SHOCKED AND SICKENED’
The Duke has accused the publisher of using unlawful means of information gathering, including hiring private investigators and listening to his voicemails to publish stories about his relationship with his mother Princess Diana, brother Prince of Wales, ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy, a few injuries and illnesses, his military service and allegations of drug use between 1996 and 2010.
MGN told the trial in London that it denied that 28 out of the 33 articles involved unlawful information gathering and that it was not admitted for the remaining five articles.
On the first day of the trial, lawyers for MGN said the publisher “unreservedly apologises” to the Duke for one instance of unlawful information gathering and that it accepted he was entitled to “appropriate compensation” – but this incident was not part of Prince Harry’s claim for breach of privacy.
In his 55-page witness statement, the Duke stoked a political storm by denouncing the government and the press as at “rock bottom”, as he questioned: “How much more blood will stain their typing fingers before someone can put a stop to this madness?”
Harry previously told the court he fitted into the headlines the tabloids created for him – “a thicko, cheat and underage drinker” – when he took the witness stand on day one of giving evidence.
He claimed he experienced hostility from the press since he was born.
Discovering the unlawful methods of how the information of these articles were obtained and the invoices relating to private investigators commissioned to unearth information on him “shocked” and “sickened”, he said.
He hinted that an article in The People dated December 2003 detailing a row with Prince William about whether to meet their mother’s former butler Paul Burrell to stop him “selling” secrets was the start of the rift between the brothers and effectively ripped the Royal family apart.
“This kind of article seeds distrust between brothers,” the Duke told the court.
“Those were the words that I used and I certainly left voicemails on my brother’s phone [using that phrase],” the Duke says, of the story’s headline that he called Burrell “a two-faced s—”.
The Duke told the High Court that the late Queen intervened and dispatched a senior aide to Noosa on the Queensland coast where he was on a gap year to monitor press intrusion.
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