Prince Harry has struck a combative tone as he testified in his lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail and disputed suggestions he was cosy with journalists who covered the royal family or that his friends dished dirt about him to the tabloids.
“My social circles were not leaky,” he declared in the third and final round of his battle against the British tabloids.
His curt replies during cross-examination and efforts to explain what it is like living under what he called “24-hour surveillance” eventually brought the intervention of the judge, who told him not to argue with the defense lawyer
“You don’t have to bear the burden of arguing the case today,” Justice Matthew Nicklin told the frustrated prince.
Prince Harry is the most prominent litigant in a case full of high-profile plaintiffs, including Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley. (Reuters: Isabel Infantes)
Harry and six other prominent figures, including Elton John and actor Elizabeth Hurley, allege that Associated Newspapers Ltd invaded their privacy by engaging in a “clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information gathering” for two decades, attorney David Sherborne said.
Associated Newspapers Ltd has denied the allegations, called them preposterous and said the roughly 50 articles in question were reported with legitimate sources that included close associates willing to inform on their famous friends.
Harry says he was ‘paranoid beyond belief’
Harry said in his 23-page witness statement that he was distressed and disturbed by the intrusion into his early life by the Mail and its sister publication the Mail on Sunday, and it made him “paranoid beyond belief.”
Under the English civil court system, witnesses present written testimony, and after asserting that it is the truth are immediately put under cross examination.
Harry, dressed in a dark suit, held a small Bible in his right hand in London’s High Court and swore to “almighty God that the evidence I shall give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
The trial in London’s High Court is expected to last nine weeks. (Reuters: Toby Melville)
After the Duke of Sussex said he preferred to be called Prince Harry, he acknowledged that his 23-page statement was authentic and accurate.
Defense lawyer Antony White, in a calm and gentle tone, began to put questions to Harry to determine if the sourcing of the articles, in fact, had come from royal correspondents working their sources at official events or from friends or associates of the prince.
As a soft-spoken Harry became increasingly defensive, White said: “I am intent on you not having a bad experience with me, but it is my job to ask you these questions.”
Harry suggested that information had come from eavesdropping on his phone calls or having private investigators snoop on him.
Diana would be ‘rightly proud’ of Harry’s tenacity to take on Murdoch tabloids
He said a former royal editor of the Mail on Sunday, Katie Nicholl, had the luxury to use the term “unidentified source” deceptively to hide unlawful measures of investigation.
“If you complain, they double down on you in my experience,” he said in explaining why he had not objected to the articles at the time.
For decades, Harry has had what he called an “uneasy” relationship with the media, but kept mum and followed the family protocol of “never complain, never explain,” he said.
Mr White also put it to Harry that Ms Nicholl was part of his social circle.
“For the avoidance of doubt, I am not friends with any of these journalists and I never have been,” Harry said.
“If the sources were so good and she was hanging out with all my friends, then why was she using private investigators who have been connected to all the unlawful information gathering?”
Articles about Meghan pushed him to sue
The litigation is part of Harry’s self-proclaimed mission to reform the media that he blames for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash in 1997 while being pursued by paparazzi in Paris.
He also said persistent press attacks on his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, led them to leave royal life and move to the United States in 2020.
He said “vicious persistent attacks,” harassment and event racists articles about Meghan, who is biracial, had inspired him to break from family tradition to finally sue the press.
It is Harry’s second time testifying after he bucked House of Windsor tradition and became the first senior royal to testify in a court in well over a century when he took the stand in his similar lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mirror in 2023.
The trial is expected to last nine weeks and a written verdict could comes months later.
AP/Reuters
