Prince Harry has spoken of his distress at detailed articles about his private life. Photo / AP
Prince Harry has spoken of his distress at detailed articles about his private life. Photo / AP
Day 2: Wednesday, June 7
The Duke of Sussex returned to the High Court on Wednesday for a further three hours and for most of that time was further questioned by Andrew Green KC, the lawyer for Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).
He asserted that there had been an “industrial scale destruction of evidence” as he scrambled to substantiate his assertions that story after story published by MGN had been obtained through unlawful means.
The Telegraph has pieced together the events of the second day of the trial.
Daily Mirror: Harry is a Chelsy fan (November 29, 2004)
The Duke questioned how the media could have known he was on holiday with a “pretty blonde” in Argentina who was identified by the Mirror as Chelsy Davy.
How it was challenged in court
Green told the court that two days before the article, it was public knowledge that Prince Harry had been with a “mystery blonde” in Argentina, and that the “inevitable consequence was that the media wanted to try and discover her identity”. A Mirror night log showed journalists “working on finding out” who the woman was.
“What this shows is that locals in Argentina were telling the press that the name of this young woman was Chelsy or Kelsey,” Green said.
He showed the court that her name had been published two days before, to which the Duke responded with a very quiet “yes”.
Green went on: “By the time of the article in the Daily Mirror her identity and your relationship were already in the public domain, weren’t they?”
The Duke replied: “Yes”.
Chelsy Davy in 2010, shortly before she and Prince Harry finally called it quits. Photo / Getty Images
The People: ‘Harry carry!’ (May 15, 2005)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke said a story about him hurting his knee and being let off daily marches at Sandhurst could only have come from some form of unlawful information gathering.
The same story also claimed he would email Davy for 15 minutes each day with a quote from a source about “how I always came back with a smile on my face”.
The Duke suggested injuries that were life-threatening were in the public interest, a knee injury was not.
How it was challenged in court
Green seized on the Duke’s insistence the article was “littered” with errors.
“So, it’s inaccuracies that you’re complaining about?” asked Green, before asking the Duke when he first saw the article.
“Most of the articles I don’t remember seeing because there were so many. But all of them were equally distressing and it’s more distressing going through them again,” the Duke told the court.
The Duke said that only the hacking of either his or Davy’s phone could explain an article, which he said contained “specific” details of calls between the pair during which he insisted he had not enjoyed a lap dance at Spearmint Rhino, a gentleman’s club.
The Duke said three payments to a freelance journalist were “particularly suspicious”. He also said that Mirror journalists had Davy’s mobile phone number and “would have access to her call data”.
How it was challenged in court
Green pointed out Harry’s trip to Spearmint Rhino with other Sandhurst cadets had been widely reported the previous day in other publications. The Duke insisted that prompted the newspaper to play catch-up.
He also said “it’s factually inaccurate” on the claim in the article that one of the lap dancers was a “tall statuesque blonde that bore a passing resemblance to Chelsy”.
The Duke complained of a “needlessly intrusive” article and questioned how journalists could have obtained “such specific details” over a crisis in his relationship with Davy.
The article stated that the pair were on the verge of splitting up after “three monumental” rows.
How it was challenged in court
Green again stated there was no evidence that phones had been hacked and that the newspaper had quoted palace sources for the article.
“So we are in the land of total speculation about whether this was voicemail interception,” he said.
“Not at all, I don’t agree,” the Duke replied. “Everything that is attributed to a Palace source, I believe, is obtained unlawfully because I never spoke to anyone about my relationship with my girlfriend because that was private.”
A sketch by court artist Elizabeth Cook shows Prince Harry being cross-examined by Andrew Green KC. Photo / AP
The Duke questioned how the newspaper could have known “exactly where I was” after being photographed going into a nightclub to “drown my sorrows” after splitting from Davy.
“I’m not entirely sure how anyone would have known we had broken up because, again, we didn’t talk about this regularly,” he told the court.
How it was challenged in court
Green pointed out that the News of the World had already run the story and the Sunday Mirror followed it up the same night.
He said: “The information about the split and the quote about the reason for the split is very similar to the News of the World article earlier the same day.”
The Duke replied: “Yes, that’s correct. But I believe the first edition of the News of the World story, about the fact that I’d been dumped, was every reason for an editor to ask journalists ‘why wasn’t this our story?’.”
Justice Fancourt asked the Duke how often he visited Amika nightclub, where the photos were taken.
“I wouldn’t say I was there once a month,” he clarified.
Daily Mirror: ‘Down in the dumped’ (Nov 12, 2007)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke said only his closest friends knew he had split with Davy, but this article reported that she had requested a trial separation in an “emotional phone call”.
He said that given he had exchanged voicemails with Davy “discussing the difficulties in our relationship, I now find this very suspicious”.
How it was challenged in court
Green pointed out that the trial separation was “widely reported” the day before in all of the Sunday papers.
The Duke said he would “take his word for it”, but added that the “competitive nature” of the media industry would encourage them to find a different version of the same story to move it on.
Green asked him: “So you accept it was reported in other papers?”
The Duke replied: “Yes, I can see it on the screen.”
He then responded before admitting he can’t remember if he read the article at the time.
Sunday Mirror: ‘Er, OK if I drop you off here?’ (Dec 2, 2007)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke wondered “what are the chances” of a photographer waiting at Kensington Palace and taking a photograph of Davy walking away from his car there.
The photograph was used as “proof” that the couple were back together. The Duke said it was “highly suspicious” that “mind-boggling” payments and inquiries were made by MGN “given how little there is to the story”.
How it was challenged in court
MGN said the Prince had no reasonable expectation of privacy in dropping Davy off in his car outside Kensington Palace gates at lunchtime, where they could be seen by observers.
Daily Mirror: ‘Harry fear as mobile is swiped’ (July 26, 2008)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Prince was pickpocketed in a nightclub in Lesotho and his mobile phone stolen, which he said “felt so smooth, so calculated, so clever”.
He questioned how the Mirror could have known the phone was password protected and contacts and messages not accessed.
How it was challenged in court
Green explained that the story was first published by Agence France-Presse, which quoted a source within the Lesotho Defence Force. The story was then republished on the Telegraph’s website and finally in the Daily Mirror the next day.
Green asked him: “You question the legitimacy of the Telegraph article, then?”
The People: ‘Soldier Harry’s Taliban’ (Sept 28, 2008)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke alleged that phone conversations with Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, his private secretary, must have been unlawfully obtained as the basis for an accurate story about how he wanted to get back to serving on the front line in either Afghanistan or Iraq.
He said a payment of £500 ($1000) related to the article was for inquiries to “obtain private details about me using unlawful means”.
Lowther-Pinkterton, he said, had been a victim of phone hacking.
Green questioned why Lowther-Pinkerton was not available to give evidence to back up the Duke’s assertion.
“He’s finished his role working for the institution and I think he would prefer to have a quiet family life after settling his phone hacking case,” said the Duke.
Sunday Mirror: ‘He just loves boozing & Army; she is fed up & is heading home’ (Jan 25, 2009)
What Prince Harry claimed
In the on-off Harry/Chelsy romance, this article asserted the pair had split once more. The Duke said he had been shown call data showing three calls to Davy’s phone by MGN journalists the day before publication.
How it was challenged in court
Green said that the story was actually broken as a “world exclusive” by the News of the World in a “lengthy article that had a lot of detail”.
The lawyer also suggested that Davy might have changed her Facebook relationship status to reveal she was single again.
The Duke replied: “I doubt she would have done that”.
Daily Mirror ‘What a way to Harry on’ (March 26, 2009)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke was suspicious of a report that he had been to watch a rugby match at Twickenham with Astrid Harbord, a PR executive, whom he was said to be dating.
He said that the pair had exchanged a lot of texts and messages, but were just friends and “a lot of the details” in the Mirror article were incorrect. He said he had never “cavorted” with Harbord, as the Mirror had claimed.
Green pointed out their appearance at the game had been reported by the Press Association the previous day.
The Duke admitted that the story seemed to be “copy and pasted” from that story.
Green then asked, in that case, what was suspicious that suggested unlawful information gathering.
The Duke said that the “evidence has been destroyed”.
Day 1: Tuesday, June 6
The Duke of Sussex was adamant that 33 articles published in the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People were obtained illegally, through unlawful information gathering that included phone hacking and the use of private detectives to “blag” medical records.
However, under cross-examination, Prince Harry could not always be certain that the stories he is complaining about were published as a consequence of law-breaking by tabloid journalists.
“Are we not in the realms of total speculation?” Andrew Green KC, the lawyer for Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), asked the Duke. His response? “I’m not the one who wrote the article. You’d have to ask the journalist.”
Stories Prince Harry insists were obtained by MGN’s journalists through unlawful methods only repeated material reported initially by other outlets, it emerged on Tuesday.
At the start of the hearing, Green repeated MGN’s “unreserved apology” over one incident of unlawful information gathering that the publisher has accepted “should have never happened and it will not happen again”. But Prince Harry insists the malfeasance was carried out on an industrial scale.
Daily Mirror: ‘Diana so sad on Harry’s big day’ (Sept 16, 1996)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke insisted that only an act of unlawful information gathering could have revealed the distress of Diana, Princess of Wales, when visiting him at Ludgrove School on his 12th birthday.
“It’s my recollection that when my mother collected or visited me at school, she would be literally ‘in and out’ of the front door of the school,” he said in his witness statement.
The article also disclosed that he was “distressed” at the ill health of Paddy Whiteland, a gardener who worked with the future King.
How it was challenged in court
Green pointed out that the Press Association (PA) had reported the Princess’ visit before any of the Mirror titles did. Her spokesman had also confirmed her appearance to PA.
“I wasn’t aware of that,” said the Duke, adding: “But the information there is vastly different to the information in the article itself”.
He told the court that observers coming to his school to “catch a glimpse of his mother” did not happen often. “I can’t remember anyone being there on my birthday,” he said.
On the subject of the gardener, who was in hospital at the time with cancer, the Duke said: “I don’t know how anyone would know that” when asked about their distress. But Green said previous articles referred to the fact that Princes Harry and William would often visit the gardener at his home.
Daily Mirror: ‘Princes take to the hills for gala’ (July 17, 2000)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Daily Mirror had alleged that Princes William and Harry had decided to go rock climbing rather than attend a gala pageant celebrating the 100th birthday of their grandmother, the late Queen Mother.
Green asked the Duke if he thought that some of the information was a result of phone hacking and, if so, whose mobile was likely to have been hacked. “I believe it could have been anyone from myself to my brother to Paddy Harverson,” the Duke said in reference to the former communications secretary for the then Prince of Wales.
How it was challenged in court
But Green pointed out that Harverson was not appointed until 2004. The Duke told the court that “there’s quite a lot of quotes and suspicious information” in the article.
Green then showed the Duke a Daily Mail article, from July 15, 2000, two days before the Daily Mirror article, that revealed the Princes were not going to be present at the Queen Mother’s gala pageant. “Based on my understanding and what I know, just because there was a story previously, doesn’t stop a journalist from attempting to take it further,” Prince Harry retorted.
Daily Mirror: ‘3am – Harry’s time at the bar’ (Sept 19, 2000)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke questioned how Mirror journalists could have known about “details of a lunch I had with friends at The Ifield pub in Chelsea to celebrate my 16th birthday… I don’t know how anyone would have known I was at this particular pub, at this particular time, to be there taking photographs of me.” He questioned, in particular, how journalists could have known “I had insisted that one of my PPOs [personal protection officer] join me and a friend when we had lunch at Pizza Express”.
How it was challenged in court
The Duke was shown photographs taken of him by an agency photographer. Green said the photographer might have been able to rush to the pub to take the pictures once he heard the Duke was there. “He could have been there before I got there,” the Duke countered. Green suggested the pub’s then-famous chef, who is quoted in news articles about Harry’s appearance at his pub, could have called the press himself. “If those are indeed his quotes,” the Duke interjected, adding that the chef was probably too busy to have done that.
Daily Mirror: ‘Snap ... Harry breaks thumb like William; Exclusive’ (Nov 11, 2000)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke said “the level of detail is just surprising” in an article about how he had chipped a bone in his thumb, such as being told by doctors not to play football for a “few weeks”. “I certainly didn’t want any information about injuries I had sustained being reported so publicly,” he said, suggesting it could only have come from hacking, possibly of his doctor’s phone.
MGN said the “broken thumb” was, in fact, first reported by PA. “Have you expressed any concerns to the Press Association about divulging information about the injury to your thumb?” Green asked the Duke. “I have not,” he responded, adding that he was only now aware it was reported by PA first.
“Are we not in the realms of total speculation?”Green asked Prince Harry about claims that someone was phone hacked to get the story. “I’m not the one who wrote the article, you’d have to ask the journalist,” he replied.
Green suggested the information could have been supplied by a fellow pupil at Eton College. “Do you find it implausible that the information may have come from a fellow schoolmate?” Green asked, before pointing out that in Spare, the Duke’s memoir, he said that school friends had told the press about a new haircut. The Duke accepted the story in his memoir might have been an “assumption”.
Sunday Mirror: ‘Harry took drugs’ and ‘Cool it Harry’ (Jan 13, 2002) and The Mirror: ‘Harry’s cocaine ecstasy and GHB parties’ (Jan 14, 2002)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke has accused the Sunday Mirror of paying private investigators to conduct unlawful information gathering “to try and find out more” about his “habitual drinking and cannabis and cocaine use” and which followed an exclusive in the News of the World. The story, said the Duke, was “untrue information”. A follow-up article included quotes from the then Prince Charles that said he was “worried sick” and “hugely relieved” when the Duke had told his father he had “only used cannabis”. Prince Harry said it was “not clear to me where the defendant’s journalists could possibly have obtained these quotes from”.
Green read out an extract from Spare, which accepted that the Palace had co-operated with the drug-taking story. But the Duke insisted the Sunday Mirror must have attempted to get more dirt on him. “This story would have been a red rag to a bull,” he said.
Green suggested the quote marks around “worried sick” in the article did not mean it was a direct quotation from the King. “I don’t think it is my role to deconstruct the articles,” the Duke said.
Daily Mirror: ‘Harry’s sick with kissing disease’ (March 29, 2002)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke said only his immediate family knew he had contracted glandular fever because “I was ashamed of having contracted it” and he did not wish to tell anyone else. He said the Palace had been bounced into confirming the illness and that a doctor had signed him off as fit to go on a family skiing trip.
MGN insisted that its royal reporter at the time was “well connected” and that its editor at the time, Piers Morgan, was close to the then Prince Charles’ deputy private secretary. Green pointed out that a St James’ Palace spokeswoman was quoted in the article talking about Harry’s condition. “This again was in reaction to a phone call from a journalist…based on the wording that’s used here,” the Duke interjected.
‘No Eton trifles for Harry, 18′ (Sept 16, 2002)
What Prince Harry claimed
He accepted the article was based on an interview given to PA to mark his turning 18. But the Duke added: “This was obviously an ideal occasion for anyone listening in to my messages to continue to do so to discover what additional private information could exclusively be reported”.
How it was challenged in court
Green insisted that Prince Harry was the source of his own complaint. He pointed out that the quotes were the same as those given to PA and also used in the Sunday Times and other newspapers. “I see the similarities,” admitted the Duke.
Green hammered home the point. “The position, then, is this – the private information of which you complain in the Daily Mirror article had been revealed by you and then published in other newspapers,” Green told the court. “I see the similarities, of course,” Prince Harry responded, before adding that he “believes the article was connected to an invoice [from private investigators]” and that “the timing was suspicious”.
The People: ‘Matured Harry is a godfather’ (April 20, 2003)
The Duke claimed unlawful information gathering must have been the source of a story that he had been asked to be godfather to the son of Harry Legge-Bourke, the brother of his former nanny Tiggy. He suggested that the People “had the means to hack Tiggy and her husband”, adding: “I now believe that this is either how this article came about or was a means to glean additional information for the article after it appeared elsewhere”.
How it was challenged in court
Green pointed out the information about Prince Harry’s appointment as godfather had been published a week before in the Sunday Telegraph, as had his expected attendance at the christening. “Again I see the similarities…but I don’t know how it was all obtained,” the Duke responded.
Green said a freelancer had written up the story from the Sunday Telegraph and then sold it on to the People for £200 ($411). “I’ve never heard of anyone writing up a story already in the public domain and selling it for £200,” Prince Harry said.
Daily Mirror: ‘Harry to lead cadet’s march’ (April 29, 2003)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke said he was “proud” to be given the role of parade commander at Eton and was suspicious that the Palace had released the information, which was not “commonplace”.
Green asked him whether the PA story revealing the same information was an issue for him, to which the Duke responded that there is no history of phone hacking to obtain stories at the news agency.
“Are you suggesting that just because the Mirror has admitted one incident of phone hacking, that every other article was obtained by phone hacking?” Green then asked the Duke. He replied “no” before going on to tell Green that this article caused him no distress.
Daily Mirror: ‘Harry is ready to quit Oz’ (Sept 27, 2003)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke said “unlawful techniques” were used in a story claiming he was considering cutting short his gap year in Australia. The article said he was “watching videos” instead of working outside to avoid television cameras and press intrusion.
Green again pointed out that the story was confirmed by quotes from a St James’ Palace spokesman and that other newspapers had run the same article. He suggested that the information about the Duke watching television to avoid the press had come from Mark Dyer, previously described as a “second dad” to Harry. “I don’t accept that Mr Dyer would be freely speaking to the press,” said the Duke.
Green responded: “Well, he is plainly speaking to the press because he is appealing to Australian broadcasters to leave you alone”. Green argued that the other publications have the “same private information” in the Daily Mirror article, to which the Duke responded “yes”.
Daily Mirror: ‘Beach bum Harry’ (Dec 16 2003)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke said he was “unclear” how anyone could have known he had travelled to the resort of Noosa during his Australian gap year and been “in the right place at the right time” to take photographs of him on a public beach. Prince Harry said finding him in the Australian resort on the Queensland coast would be like “trying to find a needle in a haystack”. He said he also only recently found out Elizabeth II had dispatched an assistant private secretary to the area “in case I needed support”.
How it was challenged in court
Green said: “I have no doubt that many photographers were prepared to look for that needle in a haystack”, adding: “Everybody has enormous sympathy with the amount of press intrusion you have suffered in your life but it does not follow that it was obtained unlawfully”.
The People: ‘Wills... Seeing Burrell is only way to stop him selling more Diana secrets. Harry no... Burrell’s a ***’ (Dec 28, 2003)
What Prince Harry claimed
Prince Harry said a message to his brother Prince William in which he described Paul Burrell, Princess Diana’s former butler, as a “two-faced s***”... “could have been lifted directly from a voicemail I had left”. He said the article was the start of a rift between the brothers because Prince William had wanted to meet Burrell whereas he had thought it a bad idea.
How it was challenged in court
The Duke admitted in court he could not remember if he wanted to meet Burrell when pressed by Green during cross-examination.
Green claimed the Prince had contradicted himself in his memoir.
“There is no suggestion in Spare that you were firmly against a meeting,” said Green.
Harry responded: “No, because I wrote it when I was 38 years old and in this story I was 18. I assume I would have wanted a meeting… I’d love to give him a piece of my mind.
“At the time I was firmly against the meeting – I was in the middle of the Australian Outback… hindsight is a very different thing.”
Green pressed him a final time. “I can’t remember whether I wanted a meeting or not,” said Prince Harry.
Daily Mirror: ‘When Harry met Daddy... The biggest danger to wildlife in Africa’ (Dec 13, 2004)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke said he was “at a complete loss” to explain how details of travel plans to Mozambique were obtained, where he was staying with his then-girlfriend Chelsy Davy and where he met her father for the first time. He said journalists had checked into his hotel before he arrived and then “blagged” information about his flight back from Africa. “I can’t begin to imagine how they had found that information out without flight blagging,” he told the court.
Green pointed out that Paul Davy, Chelsy’s uncle, had given an interview to the Mail on Sunday in which he said that the Duke was about to meet her parents for the first time.
“That doesn’t mean it’s true,” the Duke responded, adding that “journalists checked into the hotel before I even got there”.
“It’s as distressing reading and looking at it now as it was when I first looked at it,” Harry adds.
Daily Mirror: ‘Harry’s girl ‘to dump him’ (Jan 15, 2005) and Daily Mirror: ‘Chelsy is not happy’ (Jan 15, 2005)
What Prince Harry claimed
Prince Harry believes that his friend Guy Pelly’s phone may have been hacked, revealing that Davy had given him a “tongue-lashing down the phone following allegations that I had been flirting with a brunette at the party”. It also said she was unhappy after he had been photographed wearing a Nazi uniform at a fancy dress party.
Green asked if this was the case, why had Prince Harry not called Pelly as a witness. “I would want to spare most of my friends from this experience,” the Duke told Green.
Asked about the brunette claim, he said: “It never happened and therefore the quotes and everything written here has been specifically inserted to distract from the correct and true means of obtaining the information”.
“The article starts with ‘she gave him a tongue lashing over the phone’ – I don’t know how anyone would have known that.”
Sunday Mirror: ‘You did what!’ (Feb 6, 2005)
What Prince Harry claimed
The Duke’s legal team insist the story – about farm work he was ordered to do as punishment for dressing up as a Nazi – was obtained only after voicemails were hacked. They claim they have found a “large number” of invoices linked to private investigators for work on people close to the royal family.
Green again listed a number of other publications that had printed the story beforehand, including the Mail on Sunday and Sunday Express.
“Would you agree… the private information about your punishment was not obtained by the Sunday Mirror by phone hacking or any unlawful means?” asked Green. He said no invoices dated at the time suggested it had been obtained through unlawful information gathering.
But Prince Harry responded that the Mirror’s article was again a “classic example” of journalists attempting to further the story. “I can’t recall whether I read the article [at the time] but going back over it today has been a stressful experience,” he said.
The People: ‘Chelsy’s gap EIIR’ (April 24, 2005)
What Prince Harry claimed
Prince Harry found the “level of detail in this article so disturbing” after it revealed lengthy calls between him and Davy while she was in South Africa during her own gap year. The article reported they had had an “intimate break” in a hunting lodge in South Africa and that she had then visited him in England for a “hush-hush” holiday.
Green said an article in the Daily Star a week earlier had disclosed “extensive information” about the phone calls between the couple. “Yes, it does say that,” the Duke admitted. The article quoted an insider but Prince Harry had to admit the quotes were similar to another, earlier article in the Daily Mail.
The Duke said that “the quotes that are attributed to an insider are what remain suspicious to me”, but later admitted he could see “similarities” between a Daily Mail article and the People story, which was published afterwards.
