Prince Harry says he feels “physically sick” at the thought of Princess Diana’s private messages being listened to by journalists including Piers Morgan in the last months of her life.
The Duke of Sussex believes his voicemails were routinely hacked by Mirror Group Newspaper journalists and he claims his late mother fell victim to similar unlawful newsgathering tactics.
He has highlighted letters from Diana to TV presenter Michael Barrymore, in which she suspected the Daily Mirror – then edited by Morgan – had been listening to her private messages.
“The thought of Piers Morgan and his band of journalists earwigging into my mother’s private and sensitive messages (in the same way as they have me) and then having given her a ‘nightmare time’ three months prior to her death in Paris, makes me feel physically sick and even more determined to hold those responsible, including Mr Morgan, accountable for their vile and entirely unjustified behaviour”, he said, in his statement to the High Court.
Harry said he believes Morgan’s recent criticisms online, on TV, and in print of himself and wife Meghan are fuelled by a desire to bully him out of the legal case.
“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”, he said.
Harry said the attacks are “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.”
Stories in the High Court action was printed by The People and the Daily Mirror in December 2002, detailing an alleged plot to “steal Harry’s DNA” to test his parentage.
The Duke said he has endured years of unsubstantiated rumours that his real father is Major James Hewitt, who Diana dated after the breakdown of her marriage to King Charles.
“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.
“I now understand this 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.
“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 said payments totalling £6,250 have been identified which he suspects represent unlawful newsgathering for this story.
In his statement to the court, he added: “I’m shocked and appalled at the sheer volume of payments made by MGN titles to private investigators…for private information about me and my associates over a ten-year period.”
Harry has been repeatedly challenged in court to identify specific parts of articles he says came from phone hacking, and the identity of the hacking victims.
The Prince has said journalists involved in the stories should come to court “to answer which part was unlawfully obtained and which wasn’t”.
He said call data and other evidence has now been deleted, but he can point to “highly suspicious” missed and dropped calls at the time of stories.
The trial continues.
