Prince Harry has criticized the Associated Newspapers’ attempts to overturn the Supreme Court case
Prince Harry says he is determined to hold the publisher of the Mail to account as he says he is “deeply concerned” by its “unchecked power, influence and criminality”.
His testimony was revealed as part of his privacy case against Associated Newspapers.
In it, he also claimed to have been left out of the royal family’s discussions about taking legal action over the phone hack.
He attended the Supreme Court for a second day of legal arguments on Tuesday.
The Duke of Sussex and six other claimants, including Sir Elton John and Baroness Doreen Lawrence – mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence – allege their personal information was illegally obtained and used as material for the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday story.
The Associated Newspapers dismissed the allegations as “preposterous distortions” based on a “hunting trip”.
In the Duke’s statement, he criticized attempts by the publisher in court this week to have the case dismissed on legal grounds.
“Unfair is not a big enough word to describe the fact that the Associated is trying at this early stage to prevent me from making my claim,” the statement read.
“If the UK’s most influential and popular newspaper can evade justice without trying my claims, what does that say about the industry as a whole and the consequences for our great country.
“I am making this claim because I love my country and continue to be deeply concerned by the power, influence and criminality of the Associated.”
The statement details stories the duke claims were based on illegally obtained private information.
They include reports of his relationships with two girlfriends.
He also critiques a story about his reaction, along with that of his brother William, to the publication of photographs of his dying mother in the Italian media.
“It’s really disgusting,” he says, with a “brusque address” and “an explicit reference to a phone call.”
“My brother and I were relatively young at the time (I was only 21) and we were having private conversations about pictures of our deceased mother which had been put into the public domain.”
Prince Harry said in his testimony that the royal family – which he referred to as the foundation – withheld information from him about the possibility of legal action in response to media interference.
He said he only started talking to a prominent lawyer in the royal family when he started dating his now wife and she published “libel stories”.
The prince says he eventually realized he could take legal action over the phone hack in 2018.
He said: “The foundation has made it clear that we don’t need to know anything about phone hacking, and it has made it clear to me that the royal family did not sit in the witness box because that would open a can of worms.”
Sir Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, filed claims in the High Court case
Meanwhile, fellow plaintiff Sir Elton John has accused a private investigator of wiretapping his home phone and that of his gardener.
He said it was “a violation of our home and the safety of our children and loved ones”.
Sir Elton is seeking damages for 10 articles in which he says the postal addresses “misused information they stole from our family and friends”.
In his testimony, he said the Post exploited “love, connection, trust, and connections to see what information was being shared confidentially.”
Sir Elton v Associated Newspapers includes the allegation that a private investigator obtained details of his health, including that he “fell on a plane”.
His husband, David Furnish, is also filing claims in the Supreme Court lawsuit.
His statement reveals that actor Liz Hurley tipped off the couple to claim that their live phone calls had been intercepted by an investigator working for the Mail on Sunday.
She said the detective appeared to know that Sir Elton did not have a mobile phone of his own and was using multiple landlines.
Ms. Hurley claimed her calls had been wiretapped.
Baroness Lawrence
Baroness Lawrence claims that private investigators working for the Daily Mail newspaper tapped her home phone and hacked into her voicemail.
In its own statement to the Supreme Court, it also accused the newspaper of commissioning investigators to monitor her bank accounts and phone bills.
She says she trusts the Daily Mail, who has advocated vigorously for justice for her family, but concludes: “I’ve been played a fool.”
The Associated Newspapers dismissed her allegations as “horrific and baseless distortions”.
The publisher said the allegations were based on the words of private investigator Jonathan Reese, who served a prison sentence for perverting the course of justice.
In a statement last year, the Associated said: “It is deeply saddening that whoever co-ordinates these allegations so cynically and unscrupulously appears to have persuaded Baroness Lawrence – whom the Mail has the greatest respect and admiration – to endorse the word of someone such as this egregiously discredited liar.” Obvious and untrustworthy.”
But Baroness Lawrence said in her testimony, which was unsealed by the court, that she feared the private investigators’ actions had stalled investigations into Stephen’s murder.
In her statement, she said, “We developed good relations with the press and by February 1997 we joined the Daily Mail who have always been the guardians of truth and justice, the people who fight corruption and hold the reins.” Bad people are being held accountable who really care about the fact that my son’s killers have been set free.”
But when she discovered the alleged use of private investigators, she said there was a “level of trust” and “the betrayal I felt when that was taken away and I realized it was all false was intense.”
She added: “I can think of nothing less than stealing and exploiting information from a murder, from a mother who buried her son, and from people pretending to be my friends.
“It was a new shock and injustice for me.”
Allegations in the case against Associated Newspapers include wiretapping, “hacking” of voice mail messages, and the use of private investigators to obtain personal data.
More than 70 journalists have been implicated in the allegations of seven claimants – Prince Harry, Sir Elton John, his husband David Furnish, Sadie Frost, Liz Hurley, Baroness Doreen Lawrence and Sir Simon Hughes.
Their names cannot be reported for legal reasons.
illegal methods
Legal arguments on Tuesday centered on ledgers outlining payments Associated Newspapers (ANL) made to 19 private investigators in the past, allegedly working for the journalists.
The seven claimants say these were for large sums of money and evidence that illegal methods were used to collect information on them.
The revelations led to Leveson’s investigation into journalism standards in 2011.
ANL is trying to drop part of the case because, it says, Leveson files cannot be used in other cases, due to confidentiality rules.
The firm also says two of the lawyers in the case, Sir Simon Hughes, were closely involved in Leveson’s investigation and have given “undertakings” not to disclose documents they have received.
ANL’s lawyers told the court that these restrictions must be removed by the government if the evidence is to be used in the current case. This did not happen, and they said that parts of the case that depended on the ledgers should be deleted.
But David Sherborne, who is representing the seven who are suing the Associated, told the judge, Mr. Nicklin, that the books had in fact been obtained by an investigative journalist, not from the Leveson investigation.
As a senior attorney in the Leveson investigation, representing victims of press intrusions, he personally agreed not to release classified information.
But he said that pledge ended when the investigation report was published in 2012.
The court also issued a witness statement for private investigator Gavin Burrows, who denied all allegations that he hacked phones, wiretapped landlines or wiretapped cars on behalf of the Daily Mail or Mail on Sunday.
Responding to the specific allegations made by Prince Harry, Baroness Lawrence, Elton John, David Furnish, Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley, he said: “I have not been instructed or authorized by the Mail on Sunday or The Daily Mail to conduct illegal information gathering.”
Two other private investigators also made statements to the court admitting their role in providing the illegally obtained information to reporters at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.