Prince Harry case: Duke of Sussex claims phone hacking was on an 'industrial scale' at Mirror titles

In his witness statement, the Duke of Sussex described an infamous incident with a paparazzi photographer in October 2004.

Harry, then 20, was accused of lashing out at the photographer in a scuffle outside a nightclub, and photos of the incident appeared in the press.

He said: “This was a particularly challenging period of my youth. I had just turned 20, and like most 20 year-olds, I wanted to go out and socialise. However, everywhere I went, the paparazzi seemed to turn up.

“As I reached the car, I could hear taunting. I was being egged on for a reaction, knowing I’d been out and had a few drinks," he continued.

“A camera hit me across my nose as I was opening the door, I turned, grabbed the nearest camera to me and shoved it backwards.”

Harry said he was taken back to Clarence House afterwards and then “on to see a doctor”.

The duke said “everyone” in the family including now-King Charles, was "sympathetic to the position I was in".

"There was no respite, never an ‘off’ moment when I was allowed to go out with my friends without the intrusion and harassment.”

In his witness statement, the Duke of Sussex referred to a 2003 article detailing an alleged row between him and his brother William, over their mother’s former butler Paul Burrell - who they claim sold Diana's secrets after her death.

He said he would have used the phrase “two-face s***” to describe him as reported, and believed it was lifted directly from a voicemail he had left.

The Duke he faced questions from faced MGN lawyer Mr Green about claims in his witness statement that the publisher's alleged intrusion into his life contributed to “a huge amount of paranoia”.

Mr Green asked Harry how he had such feelings if he was not aware of articles published in relation to him at the time.

The Duke said he would be “speculating” if he said which articles he had read and which he had not. “In my experience, the vast majority of the quotes were attributed to a pal, a friend, a source, an onlooker, which actually creates more suspicion”.

But he said he started to re-examine articles when he “realised information had been unlawfully obtained”.

Mr Green also asked him: “Is it realistic, when you have been the subject of so much press intrusion by so many press, both domestic and international, to attribute specific distress to a particular article from 20 years ago, which you may not have seen at the time?”

Harry replied: “As I said earlier, it isn’t a specific article, it is all of the articles.... Every single article has caused me distress,” to which Mr Green then asked if each individual article published by MGN had caused him distress.

Harry replied: “Yes, without question.”

Harry has said much of his young life had been "wasted on this paranoia" - which he attributed to the actions of MGN's journalists - and said he believed his late mother suffered the same way.

His friend circle shrunk, he said, as he began to distrust those around him. “It’s bad enough at any age, but looking back, 18 years old is so young to feel constantly suspicious of everyone around you.”

“I’ve always heard people refer to my mother as paranoid, but she wasn’t," the Duke continued.

“She was fearful of what was actually happening to her and now I know that I was the same.”

MGN lawyer Andrew Green questioned the duke about a Daily Mirror article publisher in September 1996 entitled “Diana so sad on Harry’s big day”.

The court heard that Harry had complained about the article, which was about his feelings on his parents' divorce, and the ill health of a family friend.

The barrister said the duke was first issued with a mobile phone when he went to Eton in 1998 - putting it to Harry that the 1996 article could not have involved phone hacking.

But Harry said his security at school had a separate landline for him, which he used to call his mother "in floods of tears". How they got their information for the story seemed "incredibly suspicious”, he said.

Harry also said it could have been his mother who was hacked, but Mr Green replied “that’s just speculation you’ve come up with now”.

Mr Green said the article reported that Harry at the time was “believed to be taking the royal divorce badly”, and put it to the duke that his mother had already spoken publicly about the split.

“I don’t believe she talked about it, I believe she answered questions,” Harry replied.

Mr Green said there had been reporting by the Press Association months earlier on the young duke’s feelings towards the divorce.

In his witness statement, Harry referred to an article in The People from 2002 with the headline “Plot to rob the DNA of Harry” which reported a bid to steal a sample of his DNA to verify his parentage.

“Numerous newspapers had reported a rumour that my biological father was James Hewitt, a man my mother had a relationship with after I was born,” Harry said. “At the time of this article and others similar to it, I wasn’t actually aware that my mother hadn’t met Major Hewitt until after I was born.”

He said he learnt of this timeline in 2014 but claimed it was common knowledge amongst the defendant’s journalists.

“At the time, when I was 18 years old and had lost my mother just six years earlier, stories such as this felt very damaging and very real to me,” the duke said.

“They were hurtful, mean and cruel. I was always left questioning the motives behind the stories... Were the newspapers keen to put doubt into the minds of the public so I might be ousted from the royal family?”

Prince Harry has wrapped up his witness statement. His closing remarks took aim at the UK's press, and government.

“In my view, in order to save journalism as a profession, journalists need to expose those people in the media that have stolen or highjacked the privileges and powers of the press, and have used illegal or unlawful means for their own gain and agendas.

“In the same vein, I am bringing this claim, not because I hate the tabloid press or even necessarily a section of it, but in order to properly hold the people who have hijacked those privileges, which come with being a member of the press, to account for their actions.

“This has become a huge problem of which I have a unique perspective and experience perhaps, having had a front row seat to it. Because they have showed no willingness to change, I feel that I need to make sure that this unlawful behaviour is exposed, because obviously I don’t want anybody else going through the same thing that I’ve been going through on a personal level.

“But also, on a national level as, at the moment, our country is judged globally by the state of our press and our Government, both of which I believe are at rock bottom.

“Democracy fails when your press fails to scrutinise and hold the Government accountable, and instead choose to get into bed with them so they can ensure the status quo.”

Politician Nigel Farage is one of a number of Brits on social media, who are questioning whether Prince Harry's comment that the government was at rock bottom during his media trial was "playing politics":

In response to questions from lawyer Andrew Green about why Harry has complained of the Mirror group's articles when other media outlets had published the same information, the duke said his understanding was that MGN journalists were using unlawful methods to get “exclusive” angles.

He said he understood one of the PI companies used by MGN was “regularly used and connected to phone hacking”.

The duke said his understanding came from his legal team or “through legal paperwork”, including private investigator invoices, he had seen.

He said in some instances he had been shown it was “not the invoices themselves but the company behind the invoices”. Asked further about invoice evidence, Harry said: “Again, that is a question for my legal team, I can only go on what I know.”

He added that private investigator invoices from around the time of articles were “highly suspicious”, adding: “As well as missed calls and other dropped calls before and after and around the time of these articles themselves.”

The duke said the “competitiveness of newspapers” meant journalists were told “to go and find a different version of that story” or an exclusive angle.

Asked whether he was basing his complaints about MGN articles on invoices, he said: “My understanding is that during this period the hacking was done on burner phones so there is no call data and most of the evidence has been destroyed, so I have little to go on.”

Harry also attacked Piers Morgan in court - who left Good Morning Britain after saying he did not believe claims made by the Duchess of Sussex during her and Harry’s Oprah Winfrey interview - which included claims of racism.

The duke alleged Morgan, a former editor of the Daily Mirror, had been intimidating him and his wife since he launched legal proceedings against the paper's publisher.

Harry said in his statement: “Unfortunately, as a consequence of me bringing my Mirror Group claim, both myself and my wife have been subjected to a barrage of horrific personal attacks and intimidation from Piers Morgan, who was the editor of the Daily Mirror between 1995 and 2004, presumably in retaliation and in the hope that I will back down, before being able to hold him properly accountable for his unlawful activity towards both me and my mother during his editorship.”

Prince Harry’s barrister David Sherborne previously represented his mother Princess Diana, while Andrew Green KC has been described as a "beast in court".

Learn more about the lawyers for both sides in this case from our sister publication PeopleWorld here:

A look at David Sherborne and Andrew Green KC; barristers for Prince Harry and the Mirror Group Newspapers