Prince Harry walks outside the Rolls Building of the High Court in London, England on June 6.HANNAH MCKAY/Reuters
Prince Harry brought his crusade to reform Britain’s tabloid press to a London courtroom on Tuesday, but he often came up short when pressed to back up his claims about illegal wrongdoing by journalists.
In blunt and at times emotional language, Harry told the court how he had been hounded by the press since childhood. “As a child growing up, in teenage years, I was under press invasion for most of my life, up until this day,” the Prince said in almost hushed tones from a wood-panelled booth.
He went even further in a witness statement, saying that abuse by the media had caused suicides and social breakdown. “How much more blood will stain their typing fingers before someone can put a stop to this madness,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, without proper press regulation – which the current government clearly have no appetite for, because their friends in the press said so – it’s only going to get worse.”
But under cross-examination by Andrew Green, a lawyer for Mirror Group Newspapers, or MGN, Harry frequently acknowledged that he was speculating and that he had not read some of the stories he was suing over.
“If you don’t have a recollection of reading the article at the time, how do you say it has caused you distress?” Mr. Green asked.
It was a rare and remarkable court appearance by a member of the Royal Family, and it began with a discussion over how to address the 38-year-old prince. The court settled on “your Royal Highness” on first reference and then Prince Harry for the duration of the proceeding.
Throughout his day-long testimony, Harry grew more confident as he argued that the tabloid press had caused untold harm to himself, his family and his friends. He spoke in his witness statement about how the tabloids had labelled him “thicko,” “the underage drinker” and “the irresponsible drug taker.” And he reiterated his call for more media oversight.
Britain “is judged globally by the state of our press and our government – both of which I believe are at rock bottom,” he said in the statement. “Democracy fails when your press fails to scrutinize and hold the government accountable, and instead choose to get into bed with them so they can ensure the status quo.”
He also explained how his outrage had intensified since 2006 when revelations surfaced about widespread phone hacking by some tabloids.
That scandal led to several criminal convictions, a public inquiry and the closure of News of the World in 2011. MGN and other companies also paid out more than £100-million to settle claims from hundreds of phone hacking victims.
The Prince has filed civil claims against MGN and two other newspaper chains alleging they illegally obtained personal information for hundreds of stories. In the case involving MGN, he has alleged reporters hacked phones and used other illicit tactics in nearly 150 articles published between 1996 and 2010.
But in seeking damages, the onus is on Harry to prove the illegal activity took place. And he found that tough going on Tuesday.
In this court sketch by Elizabeth Cook, Prince Harry is cross-examined by Andrew Green.Elizabeth Cook/The Associated Press
Justice Timothy Fancourt has narrowed the MGN case down to 33 articles, including stories about Harry’s girlfriends, tales of alleged drug use and rumours that his biological father was James Hewitt, a friend of the Prince’s mother, Diana, the former Princess of Wales who died in 1997.
Mr. Green insisted that while MGN has admitted wrongdoing in other cases, the company’s journalists have never hacked Harry’s phone and did not use any nefarious tactics for the 33 stories.
On Tuesday, he repeatedly showed Harry how information in the stories had either already been printed in rival newspapers or could have come from palace officials or other sources. He also pointed to inconsistencies between the Prince’s witness statement and his tell-all book, Spare.
When Harry suggested during the hearing that a reporter may have hacked into the phone of a doctor to obtain information about his injured thumb, Mr. Green shot back: “Are we not, Prince Harry, in the realm of total speculation?”
During another exchange, Harry tried to connect one article to invoices the newspaper had sent to a research firm. When Mr. Green asked, “So what?,” the Prince replied that the timing was suspicious. “And so what?” Mr. Green responded.
At one point Mr. Green asked Harry whether he felt that because the company had admitted phone hacking in other cases, “you can just assume that every single article in the Daily Mirror is the result of phone hacking?”
Harry tried to turn the tables. He suggested several times that the lawyer should ask the journalists who wrote the stories where they got their information. and he revealed that one story contained details of travel plans that were never released by palace officials for security reasons and could have only been obtained through hacking.
The Prince’s time in courtrooms is likely far from over. He will be back in the witness box on Wednesday and he could testify again in the other lawsuits as they head to trial.
Paul Waldie