Prince Harry’s appeared to fight back tears as he finished giving evidence in the phone-hacking trial at the high court, saying there was “hard evidence” that he had been illegally targeted by Mirror Group Newspapers.
The prince spent eight hours in the witness box across two days, breaking with protocol as he became the first royal to be cross-examined in a court since 1891. He told the court that British newspapers had illegally targeted him all his life and then gone to “extreme lengths to cover their tracks”.
Asked how he felt as he finished giving evidence, the prince replied quietly: “It’s a lot.”
Harry said he had decided to accuse the Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People of hacking and illegal information-gathering after being disgusted by the way tabloids reported on his wife, Meghan.
He told the court that multiple past relationships had failed because of press intrusion, citing an incident when he found a tracking device on the car of his ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy. He also alleged journalists had obtained details about his relationship with the late television presenter Caroline Flack by illegally accessing voicemails.
The Mirror accepts its reporters hacked the phones of many celebrities in the 2000s but says it did not use these tactics on Harry.
Andrew Green KC, the Mirror’s barrister, previously told the court that Harry had indulged in “total speculation” about how news articles were obtained. He told Harry there was no evidence his phone had been hacked by journalists working for Mirror Group Newspapers: “There is not a single item of call data, at any time, to your mobile phone.”
This angered Harry, who appealed directly to the judge: “My lord, my whole life the press have misled me, covered up their wrongdoing. To be sitting here in court knowing that the defence has the evidence in front of them, and Mr Green saying I’m speculating … I’m not entirely sure what to say about that.”
The royal alleged there were no phone records linking the Mirror to his phone because journalists had used “burner phones” that they disposed of, ensuring no records were kept.
Green argued that journalists would have later been taking an “enormous risk” by hacking Harry’s voicemails. “I think there was a risk right from the beginning,” the prince said, adding: “I believe the risk is worth the reward for them.”
Harry appeared emboldened as he spent a second day in the witness box at the phone-hacking trial at the high court, regularly pushing back on questions from the Mirror’s barrister.
He told the court he would “feel some injustice” if the judge concluded his mobile phone had not been hacked by reporters working for the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People tabloids.
Harry said: “I believe that phone hacking was at an industrial scale across at least three of the papers at the time and that is beyond doubt. To have a decision against me and any other people that come behind me with their claims, given that Mirror Group have accepted hacking … yes, I would feel some injustice.
“I believe they would have gone to extreme lengths to cover their tracks,” he said, alleging there had been widespread destruction of evidence.
The prince told the court that during his relationship with Davy in the mid-2000s, he had been regularly amazed by how photographers and journalists were always able to track them down. At one point Harry claimed a private investigator attached a tracking device to Davy’s car.
The barrister David Sherborne asked Harry how he was certain about the existence of the equipment. The prince replied: “We found it.”
Harry also claimed reporters had learned about his secret meetings with the late television presenter Caroline Flack by obtaining hacked voicemails.
The prince said he had been “livid” when he turned up at a friend’s house in Fulham, west London, to meet Flack only to find a photographer from the photo agency Ikon Pictures “hiding beneath a car” and taking pictures.
Harry said he “very much” remembered the article and appeared sad as he told the trial that Flack was “no longer with us”, in reference to her suicide in 2020.
He said he had been talking to Flack for a few weeks and had not told anyone else about their plans to meet: “Given the fact only the three of us knew the plan, I was highly suspicious and convinced someone had leaked the information to the press … I now believe this information had come from our voicemails – mine, [his friend] Marko’s or Caroline’s. The impact these kinds of stories had on my relationships cannot be underestimated. Even those I trusted the most, I ended up doubting.”
The photographs were later published in the People newspaper alongside a story by the reporter Katie Hind headlined: “Harry’s date with Gladiators star,” which described Harry attending a “lively” party with Flack.
Sherborne later told the court about an email that Hind once sent to a colleague with the subject “pin numbers”, which included “a description of how to hack a phone from a celebrity voicemail greeting website”.
The prince stayed in court to hear evidence from the former Mirror royal reporter Jane Kerr, who wrote many of the articles he alleges were obtained illegally. She said she had never hacked a phone or carried out illegitimate acts in the name of journalism, although she could not remember the sources for some of the news stories.
Although Harry has now finished giving evidence in this trial, the case still has weeks to run and it could be months before Mr Justice Fancourt delivers his judgment.
The prince could soon be back in the witness box if he is successful in taking two entirely separate phone-hacking cases against the publisher of the Sun and the publisher of the Daily Mail to trial.
The case continues.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email [email protected] or [email protected]. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
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