Prince Harry has accused the publisher of the Daily Mail of wanting to drive him “to drugs and drinking” by placing his life under surveillance, as he told the high court that it continued to “come after” him and his wife.
The Duke of Sussex was on the verge of tears as he said Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) had continued to make Meghan’s life “an absolute misery” during his litigation against it.
He is alleging the publisher used unlawful information gathering to secure stories about him and those close to him.
In a brief speech at the end of his court appearance, the duke accused the publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday of “delving into every single aspect of my private life, listening in to calls, blagging flights so they can find out where I’m going”.
He said he had never believed details of his life should be “open season to be commercialised by these people”, describing the legal action as a “recurring traumatic experience”.
Harry said: “Through the course of this litigation, it’s only got worse, not better. I think it’s fundamentally wrong to put all of us through this again when all we wanted was an apology and some accountability.”
With his voice wavering, he added: “They continue to come after me. They have made my wife’s life an absolute misery, my lord.”
The Duchess of Sussex sued ANL and won in 2021 after the Mail on Sunday published parts of a personal letter to her father, Thomas Markle. A judge ruled that Meghan had a “reasonable expectation that the contents of the letter would remain private”. She later won a copyright claim over the letter.
Harry gave two hours of testimony as the first witness in the case that he and six other prominent figures have brought against ANL, accusing it of using private investigators, hacking and “blagging” information by unlawful means.
The six others are Doreen Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence, who was killed in a racist murder more than 30 years ago; Elton John and his husband, David Furnish; the actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost; and the former Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes.
In a witness statement submitted to the court, Harry accused the publisher of having “a campaign, an obsession of having every aspect of my life under surveillance so they could get the run on their competitors and drive me paranoid beyond belief, isolating me, and probably wanting to drive me to drugs and drinking to sell more of their papers”.
Associated Newspapers denies any wrongdoing, previously describing the claims as “lurid” and “preposterous”.
Harry engaged in frosty exchanges with Antony White, ANL’s barrister, during his cross-examination. White repeatedly put it to him that information in the 14 articles he was complaining about had been secured legitimately by journalists through their contacts within the duke’s social circles.
The duke insisted he did not have a “leaky” social circle that gave stories to ANL’s journalists. He said the moment he became suspicious about someone, he had to cut them off.
He added it had been impossible to complain about some of the stories when they were published, but he now believed they came from the use of unlawful information gathering.
White said Katie Nicholl, a former Mail on Sunday royal correspondent, who wrote several of the stories, had gone to the same social events and nightclubs. He suggested the duke also had a good relationship with Rebecca English, the Daily Mail’s royal editor.
“I did not have a good relationship with Ms English. Quite the opposite,” Harry said. “For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not friends with any of these journalists and never have been,” he added.
White said Harry was at one point Facebook friends with a third journalist, the Mail on Sunday’s former diary editor Charlotte Griffiths. He suggested Harry had used the pseudonym “Mr Mischief” on the site, which the duke flatly denied. White also said Harry had met Griffiths in Ibiza, which he also denied.
White has previously told the court the seven claimants were “clutching at straws in the wind and seeking to bind them together” by asking the court to equate the payment of a private investigator with proof that unlawful means were being used to secure stories.
The publisher said stories were obtained “entirely legitimately from information provided by contacts of the journalists responsible, including individuals in the Duke of Sussex’s social circle, press officers and publicists, freelance journalists, photographers and prior reports”.
In his written statement, Harry said he learned of alleged unlawful activity by the Daily Mail publisher after he had taken action against the publishers of the Daily Mirror and the Sun.
“I am determined to hold Associated accountable, for everyone’s sake,” he said. “If the defendant, the owner of various national newspapers including the Daily Mail, which, by its own definition, is the most influential and popular newspaper in the UK, can evade justice without there being a trial of my claims then what does that say about the industry as a whole and the consequences for our great country?”
The trial continues.
