Rishi Sunak’s government at rock bottom, ‘paranoid’ Prince Harry tells High Court

Prince Harry described the UK government as being at ‘rock bottom’ during a historic day of evidence at the High Court.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, left, and Prince Harry.

The Duke of Sussex struggled to justify his phone-hacking claims and breached royal convention on Tuesday during a historic day of evidence at the High Court.

Harry launched an extraordinary attack on Rishi Sunak’s government, saying it was at “rock bottom”, before almost five gruelling hours of evidence during which he described being left “paranoid” by tabloid newspapers.

He appeared in court for his privacy case against the publisher of the Daily Mirror, a day later than ordered by the judge, to become the first senior royal in more than 130 years to give evidence from the witness box.

The Duke, fifth in line to the throne, broke the convention that the royal family never interferes with politics. “Our country is judged globally by the state of our press and our government – both of which I believe are at rock bottom,” he told the court.

“Democracy fails when your press fails to scrutinise and hold the government accountable, and instead chooses to get into bed with them so they can ensure the status quo.”

He accused newspapers of hacking his voicemails since he was a teenager, saying it made him feel he “couldn’t trust anybody, which led to bouts of depression and paranoia”.

The Duke claims he was the victim of unlawful information-gathering along with the King, the Prince of Wales, and his mother, Diana.

“I’ve always heard people refer to my mother as paranoid, but she wasn’t,” he said. “She was fearful of what was actually happening to her and now I know that I was the same.”

He added: “I feel somewhat relieved to know that my paranoia towards my friends and family had, in fact, been misplaced, although I feel sad for how much it impacted my adolescence.”

Harry, 38, was forced to admit repeatedly that articles he claimed were the result of voicemail hacking or unlawful activities by private investigators actually emerged from official palace statements, interviews with him or his mother, or previous media reports.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in New York. Picture: MEGA/GC Images

The Duke admitted his account of wanting to confront his mother’s butler, Paul Burrell – whom he described as a “two-faced shit” – was contradicted by his own memoir, Spare, which was published in January.

He also addressed rumours that his mother’s redheaded lover was actually his father. “Numerous newspapers had reported a rumour that my biological father was James Hewitt, a man my mother had a relationship with after I was born,” he said.

The Duke said Chelsy Davy, his first serious girlfriend, ended their relationship because of media intrusion. Reports at the time blamed his own drug use, which he admitted in Spare.

He also suggested that he lived up to media “stereotypes” that meant he was, as the future king’s younger brother, “either the playboy prince, the failure, the dropout or, in my case, the thicko, the cheat, the underage drinker, the irresponsible drug-taker . . . the list goes on”. He added: “I thought that if they are printing this rubbish about me and people were believing it, I may as well ‘do the crime’, so to speak.”

The Duke said that journalists were “desperate for anything royal” and “any element of our private lives is interesting to the public”. He accused tabloids of inciting “hatred” and “harassment”, asking: “How much more blood will stain their typing fingers before someone can put a stop to this madness?”

Andrew Green KC, representing Mirror Group Newspapers, told him: “Can I make it clear, Prince Harry, that everybody has enormous sympathy with the enormous press intrusion you have suffered throughout your life. It doesn’t necessarily follow that it was the result of unlawful activity.”

As Harry insisted that he was the victim of hacking despite having no direct evidence, Green responded: “Are we not, Prince Harry, in the realms of total speculation?”

Harry returns to court on Wednesday for further questioning. Mirror Group Newspapers says there is “no evidence, or no sufficient evidence, of voicemail interception” in his claim.

Rishi Sunak refused to be drawn on Harry’s statement, saying: “We have a longstanding convention that prime ministers don’t comment on members of the royal family.”

The Times