The Royal Family Believes Prince Harry’s Case Against the British Tabloids Is “Not Going to End Well”

Prince Harry “will stop at nothing” in the hacking case against Britain’s tabloids and is optimistic he will win against Mirror Group Newspapers, publisher of the Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, and the Sunday People.

According to a source close to Harry, the prince feels his lawsuit is “not about seeking payouts or public apologies but about changing the way the tabloid press operates.”

The source added, “Harry will stop at nothing. He believes he was hacked and that he has every reason to believe this was the case, given that the Mirror has admitted to historic phone hacking [in other cases]. In his eyes everything leads back to phone hacking.”

Harry has made it clear in both his extensive witness statement and his court testimony that he believes he has been the victim of illicit news gathering on an industrial scale.

Prince Harry told the court Wednesday he believes he may have been hacked on “a daily basis” over a 15-year period but admitted he had no evidence to back it up. While at the High Court for the second consecutive day, Harry was cross-examined by Andrew Green and questioned by his own barrister, David Sherborne.

The historic court case is the first time a senior royal has taken the witness stand in 132 years and has attracted global attention. Harry has arrived alone for each day of the hearing, which has been covered by media outlets from around the world. When asked by Sherbourne how he felt about being in the public courtroom with the world’s media watching, Harry, who looked exhausted and emotional after a second day of extensive questioning, responded, “It’s a lot.”

Wednesday’s hearing has centered largely on stories about Prince Harry’s relationship with his ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy and how the press seemed to know where they would be and when. The matter of blagging (obtaining confidential information through deceptive methods) was raised when Sherbourne on Wednesday read out details of a flight taken by Davy, including her seat number, which were allegedly blagged by a freelance journalist in South Africa.

Harry also claimed that he was targeted by paparazzi, who became known to him and would turn up at places before he arrived. He told the court that he believes the journalists at the newspapers in question went to “extreme lengths to cover their tracks” and that there had been an “industrial-scale destruction of evidence” of unlawful news gathering.

Given the high-profile nature of the case and the personal nature of questioning, King Charles and Prince William were both said to be wary about Harry giving evidence. It is understood that Harry’s father had previously advised him not to take on the tabloids but Harry was intent on having his day in court.

The fact that he has pursued the case is said to be another factor dividing Prince Harry from his family. “The family believes this is not going to end well,” one source said.

Harry’s relationship with his father and brother remains strained and he has not seen them during his fleeting trip to the UK. Harry is expected to leave for California Wednesday evening.

The case risks embarrassing the royal family as private information has been revealed about other family members in Harry’s case against News Group Newspapers (NGN). Court documents in April revealed that his brother, Prince William, had accepted “a very large sum of money”—thought to be about 1 million British pounds—from Rupert Murdoch’s NGN after he was a victim of phone hacking.

So far Buckingham Palace has declined to comment.

While Harry has performed well under pressure on the witness stand, he has crucially not been able to deliver any concrete evidence that he was hacked, despite submitting 148 articles he claims are suspicious and testifying and being cross-examined about 33 of these. During the hearing, Green pointed out that many of the articles selected by Harry’s legal team had either been based on reports from other newspapers or confirmed by palace aides, suggesting that they were not the result of hacking.

Harry has said he would feel a sense of “injustice” if his claims are not accepted by the court.

At times he appeared exasperated and even overwhelmed as he endured hours of questioning, but sources close to Harry say it is worth it to the prince, who has said it is his life’s mission to change the media landscape. On Wednesday, he admitted that he was taking legal action “as a way to stop the abuse, intrusion, and hate that was coming towards me and my wife.” A day earlier, he singled out TV presenter and journalist Piers Morgan, who Harry claims has subjected him and his wife, Meghan Markle, to a barrage of abuse and harassment.

“Harry is a man on a mission, and he wants to see change,” says a second source who knows him well.

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