Prince Harry accused the monarchy of “withholding information” from him about the phone hacking while reaching an “agreement” with Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
The Duke of Sussex is suing the publisher of the Daily Mail other The Mail on Sunday over alleged bugging, getting personal information through deception and breaching his privacy.But he is at risk of seeing the case thrown out due to being filed too long after the incidents complained about.
Harry sought to justify the long time span by saying Buckingham Palace held back information about his status as a phone hacking victim.
In a witness statement seen by Newsweek Tuesday, he said: “It is important to emphasize that from 2005 I never had any interface or interaction with the family [legal] representative, Gerrard Tyrrell, who, in hindsight, was clearly getting instructions from within the institution not to involve myself or William about phone hacking by the News of the World.
“No one was ever brought together for a discussion and there were no structured meetings of any sort, certainly none that I was invited to or made aware of. I only really started to regularly speak with Gerrard when I started dating Meghan, about the defamatory stories then being published.”
By contrast, he said the palace made a deal with Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers [NGN]publisher of both the News of the World other The Sun.
“There was in place an agreement between the Institution and NGN that we would not engage, or even discuss, the possibility of bringing claims against NGN until the litigation against it relating to phone hacking was over,” he wrote.
“The Institution made it clear that we did not need to know anything about phone hacking and it was made clear to me that the Royal Family did not sit in the witness box because that could open up a can of worms.
“The Institution was without a doubt withholding information from me for a long time about NGN’s phone hacking and that has only become clear in recent years
as I have pursued my own claim with different legal advice and representation.”
Harry and six other claimants, including Liz Hurley and Elton John, have accused Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Mail newspapers, of using wiretaps, phone hacking, bugging, and other unlawful techniques. Some of the allegations date back to 1993.
The newspaper group has applied to have the case thrown out on the basis the allegations are more than six years old and the attempt is being heard over four days at the High Court in London.
Harry said the Mail left him paranoid and so suspicious that he cut off friends fearing they were leaking to press.
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.
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Prince Harry accused the monarchy of “withholding information” from him about the phone hacking while reaching an “agreement” with Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
