Prince Harry ‘the first target’ of the UK publisher, ‘his phone has been hacked’, the court told | World news
Prince Harry was a “prime target” for the tabloid press and was the victim of phone hacking, his lawyer told London’s High Court as the trial in the case against the newspaper publisher neared its end. The Duke of Sussex and 100 others are suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, over allegations of wiretapping and illegal information gathering between 1991 and 2011.
Prince Harry’s lawyer told the court that the case against MGN was “reckless”, insisting that “the newspapers consider him as the main target, perhaps one of the main targets, in the sense of the the king’s story drives newspaper sales.”
MGN previously acquitted its titles of illegal data collection and settled more than 600 claims. The producer, however, said there was no evidence that Prince Harry’s phone had been hacked. Some of the personal information about Prince Harry in the stories cited during the case came from, or with the authority of, senior Buckingham Palace aides, the publisher said.
It was “highly unlikely” MGN would have targeted Prince Harry, especially after the 2006 arrest of the then royal editor of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid, he added.
Prince Harry – fifth-in-line to the throne – became the first royal to give evidence in court in 130 years when he appeared this month in the witness box.
Prince Harry’s “undoubtedly justified anger at his treatment by the British and international media over many years” has been channeled into his legal action, which he says is not for compensation, his lawyer said.
