The Duke of Sussex has submitted a witness statement ahead of his appearance in London in the legal case against Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers.
Prince Harry has spoken up.
The Duke of Sussex, who is in London this week for a legal hearing in which he and other prominent figures are suing Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, for illegal information gathering, has submitted a witness statement in which he claims he was forced to follow his family’s policy of “never complain, never explain” when dealing with the media.
“I have always had an unhappy relationship with the press since the death of my mother in 1997 when I was 12 years old and her treatment at the hands of the press,” he added, referring to his mother, Princess Diana. “But, as a member of the Institution, the principle was to ‘never complain, never explain.’ There was no alternative; I was conditioned to accept it, and I accepted the interest in my executing my public tasks for the most part.”
Prince Harry, on the other hand, stated that dating Meghan Markle made him “increasingly troubled by the approach of not taking action against the press in the wake of vicious persistent attacks on, harassment of, and intrusive, sometimes racist articles concerning Meghan.” He added that “the situation got worse” with Meghan’s pregnancy and the birth of their first child, Prince Archie, in May 2019.
Prince Harry stated that he discovered he had a phone hacking action against News Group Newspapers that he may file in 2018.
“The Institution was without a doubt hiding information from me regarding NGN’s phone hacking for a long time, and that has just recently become obvious as I have pursued my own claim with separate legal advice and representation,” he stated.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that the bubble burst in terms of what I knew in 2020 when I moved out of the United Kingdom,” Harry added. That year, Prince Harry and Meghan moved to her home state of California after standing down as senior members of the royal family.
“To this day, there are members of the Royal Family and friends of mine who may have been targeted by NGN, and I have no idea whether or not they have filed claims,” he added. “Since each office in the Institution is siloed, there was never any centralized conversation between us about who had submitted allegations; there is this misunderstanding that we are all in constant communication with one another, but that is not true.”
The claim, according to Prince Harry, is “not just about me.”
“I am bringing this claim because I love my country and I am genuinely concerned about Associated’s unbridled power, influence, and criminality,” he stated. “The information I’ve seen indicates that Associated’s journalists are criminals with journalistic powers, which should alarm all of us; the British public deserves to know the full nature of this cover-up, and I feel it is my obligation to expose it.”
The Duke of Sussex returned to the High Court on Tuesday for the second day of a court lawsuit in which he and other prominent personalities, including Elton John, the singer’s husband David Furnish, Elizabeth Hurley, Parliament member Doreen Lawrence, and Jude Law’s ex-wife Sadie Frost, are suing ANL. The claimants claimed in the lawsuit that illegal practices included private investigators placing listening devices in their cars and homes, secretly recording private phone calls, paying police “with corrupt links to private investigators” for sensitive information, impersonation to obtain medical information from hospitals and care facilities, and illicit manipulation into accessing bank accounts, credit histories, and other financial information.
The four-day hearing will hear legal arguments from both parties and will culminate with a judge’s decision on whether the matter should proceed to trial. Associated Newspapers believes the case should be dismissed.
According to the BBC, Associated Newspapers denies the charges, calling them “preposterous slander.”
