Prince Harry gets his day in court against tabloids he accuses of blighting his life

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Prince Harry appeared in a courtroom witness box on Tuesday, taking an oath to tell the truth as he testified against a tabloid publisher. He accused the publisher of engaging in phone hacking and other illegal activities that have negatively impacted his life.

Holding a Bible in one hand, Prince Harry was sworn in at the High Court in London, where he is suing the publisher of the Daily Mirror. He arrived at the court in a black SUV, passing through a crowd of photographers and TV cameras.

Prince Harry claims that the Mirror publisher used unlawful techniques on a large scale to obtain exclusive stories. He faced extensive cross-examination by a lawyer representing Mirror Group Newspapers, which is disputing the allegations.

Seated in the witness box, Prince Harry, dressed in a dark suit and tie, expressed that he has faced hostility from the media since his birth. He accused the tabloids of playing a destructive role in his upbringing.

However, when pressed to recall specific articles that caused distress, Prince Harry admitted he couldn’t remember them individually. He maintained that every single article had caused him distress.

The defense lawyer, Andrew Green, questioned Prince Harry about evidence of phone hacking in specific articles. Prince Harry responded that he would need to ask the journalist who wrote the article for such information. He repeatedly emphasized that the methods used to obtain information were highly suspicious.

Regarding an article about his 12th birthday, when he didn’t have a mobile phone, Prince Harry suggested that the reporters might have hacked his late mother, Princess Diana’s phone. The defense lawyer dismissed this as speculation.

When confronted about his parents’ divorce, Prince Harry acknowledged that, like most children, he took it badly. However, he argued that reporting such information was illegitimate and raised suspicions about the methods used to obtain it.

Prince Harry, the 38-year-old son of King Charles III, is the first senior British royal to face questioning in court since the 19th century. He has taken it upon himself to hold the UK media accountable for what he perceives as relentless harassment of him and his family.

His lawyer, David Sherborne, presented his case in court, stating that British newspapers used hacking and subterfuge to gather information about Prince Harry from his childhood. He emphasized that nothing was off-limits for the tabloids, with around 2,500 articles covering all aspects of Prince Harry’s life between 1996 and 2011.

In a written witness statement, Prince Harry expressed that he felt owned by the tabloid press. He believed that the media interfered in all his relationships, whether with friends, girlfriends, family, or the army.

Phone hacking was prevalent in British tabloids in the early 2000s, leading to a crisis in the industry after the News of the World was found to have hacked the phone of a murdered 13-year-old girl in 2011. Mirror Group has already paid over £100 million to settle unlawful information-gathering claims.

Mirror Group denies Prince Harry’s claims, which pertain to 33 published articles. The defense argues that there is no evidence to support the allegation that Prince Harry was hacked, let alone on a regular basis. The cross-examination of Prince Harry is expected to last a day and a half.

Prince Harry missed the opening of the trial due to a flight from Los Angeles after his daughter’s birthday. This caused surprise and some displeasure from the judge, who had instructed him to be present.

Prince Harry’s frustration with the UK press and his own royal relatives, whom he believes colluded with the media, is evident in his memoir and interviews. He has blamed the paparazzi for his mother’s death and cited harassment and intrusion from the UK press, including alleged racism, as reasons for leaving royal life and relocating to the US.

While Prince Harry has tried to regain control of his narrative through his memoir and media appearances, the courtroom cross-examination exposes him to scrutiny by reporters capturing every word.

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More about Prince Harry, tabloid lawsuits

• Prince Harry sues publisher of the Daily Mirror
• Prince Harry’s court case against tabloids
• Prince Harry’s accusations and media accountability
• Phone hacking scandals in the UK media
• Mirror Group’s settlement for unlawful information-gathering claims