In Harry vs the world ’my truth’ won’t win against the facts

Prince Harry leaves the Royal Courts of Justice after giving evidence. Picture: AFP.

The big question about Prince Harry’s court case, the one that’s keeping me awake at night, is: where’s he staying? Frogmore has been repossessed. The Premier Inn on Fleet Street is full. There are a few rooms up the road in Smithfield, but Smithfield is a meat market where they used to burn people at the stake. Bad vibes.

Charles has left the country and if Camilla is roasting a fatted calf, it’s probably to drop on Harry from a great height. And while it would be really, properly funny if William and Kate were making up the “spare” room, somehow I doubt it. Which leaves Royal Lodge, where hopefully he and Prince Andrew are arguing about epaulettes and who walks into dinner first.

And so we embark on day two of Harry v the world. To recap so far, we’ve learnt that he expects to be called Your Royal Highness at first instance, and Prince Harry thereafter, so he’s definitely over the whole royal thing and living a life of quiet civilian contentment in California.

It’s not often that Call Me HRH makes me laugh, but then I read his witness statement. I didn’t have to read very much, which was a relief, because it’s 25,000 words and 49 pages. The best bit is right at the top, in the second sentence, which I will summarise as follows: everything in his statement is true, except for the bits that come from others, which he thinks are true but might not be. Take that, m’Lud.

Lawyer for MGN Andrew Green KC, arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice. Picture: AFP.

Call Me is being cross-examined by Andrew Green KC, who has been a silk for 13 years. Green is described by the Legal 500 as a man with a superb mind, one of the most formidable cross-examiners at the Bar, a lawyer who you would definitely want on your side and – my personal favourite – “a beast in court”.

Oh Harry, Harry, with your D in geography and your California mumble-speak, all the healing crystals in the world can’t help you now. When recollections vary this time, it isn’t Oprah who decides, it’s a judge. What could possibly go wrong?

Does he have enough self-awareness to think, “What have I done?” or is it swamped by an overblown sense of paranoid entitlement? One article, Call Me insists, was based on private information that wasn’t publicly known and therefore must have been discovered by nefarious means. But maybe Mystic Meg was having a good day, Harry? Did you consider that? You didn’t? Why not? Or maybe, as it turns out, the information was contained in a press release issued by Clarence House. Oh.

The only royal who could have enhanced Meghan’s image was the Queen. Picture: Getty Images.

His memoir contradicted one of his claims and, on another of his theories, he conceded that he had “little to go on”. Obviously in such circumstances you make it up, or, as Green put it: “Are we not, Prince Harry, in the realms of total speculation?”

That is, by the by, as elegant a summing up of everything the Sussexes have alleged for the past five years as I can imagine.

An early contender for best moment of the trial could be yet another story that Harry said could only have been obtained by illegal means. Alas, it turned out he had said it himself. Oh. A suspicious article about his 18th birthday, a mere two decades ago, came from an interview he gave to the Press Association. Oh.

Call Me informs us in his witness statement that he is fifth in line to the throne, which is interesting. He declares that “our country” – “our” country, Harry? Really? – “is judged globally by the state of our press and our government, both of which I believe are at rock bottom,” which is also interesting. I long to hear more of his insights on why democracies fail, and perhaps he’ll expand on them one day, when he’s finished feeding the chickens, if someone pays him enough.

He has such love and respect for “our country” and its institutions that he didn’t even bother to turn up for his first day in court. Too busy. Too important. The little people can wait and that includes you, Mr Justice Fancourt, who confined himself to expressing surprise at the turn of events.

Harry was questioned about his appearance at the strip join Spearmint Rhino

Did no one explain to Call Me that in court, feelings don’t trump facts? He’s spent a fortune getting in touch with his own, so maybe he struggles to grasp that, in this arena, they don’t matter. Hunches are not proof. There is no “my truth”, just “the truth”.

Flying in from California and jumbling together an ex who dumped you 20 years ago with the state of the UK government is bonkers. His lawyer is David Sherborne KC, a lavishly tanned man with the air of one well pleased with his hairdresser. He leads the best legal team that money can buy, but he’s paid to offer advice and carry out Harry’s instructions, not to save him from himself. That’s what family and friends are for. Anyone could have predicted this. Anyone who loves him would surely have said: “Don’t do it.”

Prince Harry with lavishly tanned barrister David Sherborne. Picture: Getty Images.

Is Charles sitting in his Romanian potting shed, or wherever he is, with his head in his hands? His second son is under oath at the High Court, talking about what happened in a Spearmint Rhino strip club in 2006.

It’s not a great look. And where’s Meghan? Childcare issues? Keeping her own brand clean? Or is it that the only royal who she calculated could enhance her image, Queen Elizabeth, is dead, so frankly why bother with the jet lag?

A million pounds says that if he wins we get a syrupy statement from them both. Maybe he’ll win, maybe he won’t, the world keeps turning. Was it worth all the millions of pounds and hours of Zoom calls with his lawyers when he could have been playing with his children? Does Charles accept any share of the blame for how his son turned out? And ye gods, what must William make of the gory showdown in EC4? It’s enough to bring even Prince Andrew out in a cold sweat.

Harry, Call Me HRH, the prince of privacy, is nursing grudges from his school days instead of living his best life in sunny California.

“I think he’d prefer to have a quiet family life,” Harry said of a former aide who will not be in the witness box giving evidence on his behalf. There’s a lesson for him there.

The Times