Prince Harry has finished his first day being cross examined in the High Court as part of his case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN). The Duke of Sussex – the first member of the royal family to give evidence in court in more than 130 years – says reporters used unlawful means, including phone hacking, to get stories about him. Harry will be back in the witness box tomorrow. Here’s what has happened today so far:
• According to Harry, attributing a source as a ‘pal’ is a classic hallmark of phone hacking
• Harry alleges the tabloids spied on him on his Australian gap year using a private investigator
• The Duke accused the tabloids of hacking his phone while he was at Eton
• Newspaper editors and journalists have ‘blood on their hands’, the Duke said
• Harry says that stories that King Charles was not his real father were ‘designed to oust me’ from the royal family
Alexander Larman has a write-up of this morning’s events here on Coffee House.
4.45pm: Court session ends for today
The trial has finished for today, with Prince Harry due to resume giving evidence in the witness box tomorrow. He has been instructed not to discuss his evidence with anyone in the meantime.
4.05pm: Harry disputes Chelsy Davy’s uncle leaked news of spat
Prince Harry has disputed the suggestion that Chelsy Davy’s uncle might have been the source behind the story that Davy allegedly argued with Harry after the infamous fancy dress party where the Duke dressed up as a Nazi. An article in the Mirror linked the argument to claims Harry had flirted with another girl at the party. Green suggested that Davy’s uncle was the source for this information.
3.45pm: Who revealed that Harry met the parents?
The Duke of Sussex disputed the idea that details in a Mirror article which revealed he had met then-girlfriend Chelsy Davy’s father in Mozambique had come from an initial report in the Mail on Sunday. Mr Green said the Mail on Sunday article was based on an interview with Davy’s uncle, to which Harry retorted ‘Doesn’t mean it’s true, Mr Green’.
Harry also rejected the suggestion that it might have been Davy’s uncle who gave the media information about Harry’s flight back to the UK.
3.20pm: Harry says he was watched in Australia
Prince Harry’s witness statement alleges that Mirror Group Newspapers paid a private investigator £550 to watch him in Australia on his gap year. Mr Green said the Evening Standard had first reported where Harry was.
3.00pm: Harry confirms he is behind witness statement
The Duke of Sussex said his witness statement ‘was written by me after a series of video calls with my legal team while I was in California’, after Mr Green asked if he was ‘just reading out something that has been drafted by your solicitors’.
2.40pm: Harry challenged over three-sentence article
Prince Harry has said it is ‘very suspicious’ that no byline appeared on a three-sentence article about Harry leading the military cadets at Eton. The Duke said it was not suspicious that the PA ran the same story, because the PA does not have a history of phone hacking.
Mr Green replied: ‘Are you suggesting that just because the Mirror has admitted one incident of phone hacking, that every other article was obtained by phone hacking?’ Harry replied ‘no’.
2.20pm: Sunday Mirror story based on an interview Harry gave
MGN’s barrister is asking Prince Harry about a Sunday Mirror story, which contained information about Harry’s 18th birthday plans. It was based on an embargoed interview Harry had given to the Press Association, Andrew Green said. ‘I see the similarities, of course’, Harry said, but still claimed the ‘timing was suspicious’.
1pm: Prince Harry facing a bruising time in the High Court
The Duke of Sussex has had a tough morning, fielding questions from MGN’s barrister Andrew Green KC. Green, described as a ‘beast in court’ by Legal 500, has been skilfully unpicking Harry’s claim that articles about him were obtained using unlawful methods, writes Alexander Larman on Coffee House: ‘Green’s line of questioning represents quite the most combative interrogation that the Duke of Sussex has faced in several years, possibly ever.’
You can read Alexander Larman’s full piece here.
12.30pm: How did the Mirror know about Harry’s pub lunch?
An article about Prince Harry having Sunday lunch in a pub on Fulham Road in London comes under the spotlight. ‘I don’t know how anyone would have known I was at this particular pub, at this particular time, in order to be there, taking photographs of me,’ the prince says in his witness statement. ‘I always found these kind of “coincidences” to be odd’.
MGN’s barrister Andrew Green KC suggests that there is no reason to say this story must have been sourced through illegal means. Harry replies: ‘I do not believe that as a witness it’s my job to deconstruct the article or be able to answer which parts are unlawfully obtained and which aren’t. I think the journalist themselves should be doing that.’
11.30am: Harry: Piers Morgan makes me sick
‘Never complain, never explain’ is the guiding principle of the royals. But Harry appears to have discarded that advice – at least when it comes to sharing his thoughts about Piers Morgan:
The thought of Piers Morgan and his band of journalists earwigging into my mother’s private and sensitive messages … makes me feel physically sick and even more determined to hold those responsible, including Mr Morgan, accountable for their vile and entirely unjustified behaviour.
11am: Prince Harry’s mission
‘How much more blood will stain their typing fingers before someone can put a stop to this madness’?’ Harry asks of journalists in his witness statement in his case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN). After the prince became the first member of the royal family to give evidence in court in 132 years this morning, he was asked what he meant and whether he was there to ‘put a stop to this madness’.
‘That is my hope,’ he replies.
10am: Prince Harry arrives
The Duke of Sussex arrives at the High Court in London, flanked by security guards:
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