Prince Harry traveled back across the pond to take the stand in London Court on Tuesday. The Duke of Sussex is suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) for allegedly publishing illegally obtained information.
The royal arrived at the High Court’s Rolls Building as a part of the Royal Courts of Justice in London to take the stand against MGN. He originally filed the complaint back in 2019, claiming that his phone voicemails were hacked by MGN — the publisher of Daily Mirror, Daily Express, the Sunday Mirror and more.
The Duke released a witness statement on Tuesday detailing how “tabloids would routinely publish articles about me that were often wrong but interspersed with snippets of truth, which I now think were most likely gleaned from voicemail interception and/or unlawful information gathering,” according to People.
He said, “I genuinely feel that in every relationship that I’ve ever had — be that with friends, girlfriends, with family or with the army, there’s always been a third party involved, namely the tabloid press.”
“Having seen me grow up from a baby (being born into this ‘contractual relationship’ without any choice) and scrutinized my every move,” he complained. “The tabloids have known the challenges and mental health struggles that I have had to deal with throughout my childhood and adult life and for them to then play on that and use it to their own advantage, I think is, well, criminal.”
People reported that the people Prince Harry most regularly shared voice messages with have been his brother Prince William, his father King Charles, his mother Princess Diana and his former girlfriend Chelsy Davy.
Prince Harry also mentioned unusual phone activity, detailing that new voicemails would not register as new or notify him. The witness statement read, “I wouldn’t go into my voicemail unless the little envelope symbol flashed up on my phone signaling to me that I had a new message. Sometimes this symbol would vanish before I had a chance to listen to the voicemail.”
In his testimony, Prince Harry said that tabloids have “blood on their hands” for the pain they’ve inflicted.
The royal was not present during court on Monday, as it was the day after he celebrated his daughter Princess Lilibet’s second birthday with his wife Meghan Markle and his travel arrangements were “a little bit tricky,” according to his attorney David Sherborne.
At the trial’s start on May 10, MGN issued an apology to Prince Harry. According to Sky News, the organization “unreservedly apologizes” for one instance of unlawful information gathering against the Duke of Sussex and that the violation “warrants compensation.” The publication stated that an MGN journalist ordered a private investigator to illegally gather information about the Prince’s time at a London nightclub in 2004. Otherwise, the media organization denied all other allegations of hacking.
Prince Harry is the first high-level member of the British royal family to give evidence in court in over 130 years, according to Reuters. King Edward VII was the last royal to do so, when he testified in a slander case over a card game in 1890 before ascending the throne.
In March, the Prince made an appearance in High Court, participating in legal proceedings against Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL). Last year, Prince Harry and other A-list figures including Elizabeth Hurley, Elton John, Jude Law‘s ex-wife Sadie Frost and more took legal action against the Associated Press, and sued the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, for also publishing illegally obtained information.
In their 2022 documentary Harry & Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex detailed Markle’s 2021 legal victory for copyright infringement against the Associated Newspapers for articles published in The Mail on Sunday and posted on Mail Online.
The last time Harry was back in his home country was on May 6 for his father King Charles’ coronation. Harry arrived solo while Meghan stayed home in California to celebrate their son Archie’s 4th birthday. He was seated three rows back with his cousins Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice and their husbands, Jack Brooksbank and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi respectively. After the ceremony, Harry didn’t participate in the procession to Buckingham Palace or appear on the balcony with his family — reportedly, only working royals are allowed to stand on the balcony. It appeared that his path never crossed with his older brother William.
Harry looked smiley while talking to his cousins as he exited Westminster Abbey before getting into a car while the rest of his family rode in carriages through the procession. He headed straight back to California and landed late that evening.
