Prince Harry’s war with the tabloid press this week became a courtroom battle, with words as weapons. His antipathy can be traced to his mother’s death, which he blames on reckless journalists. As a child he was deeply affected by an aggressive, intrusive press. Newspapers reported with “surprising” detail how he broke his hand as a 14-year-old. Two years later, it was “Harry’s Cocaine Ecstasy and GHB Parties”. While remarking how stressful such stories were, in seven hours of testimony over two days, he remained calm. An invasive tabloid culture produced, he confessed, a “huge amount of paranoia”.
The first British royal to be cross-examined in a court of law since the 19th century, the prince contends that journalists working for the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People hacked his voicemails and illegally used private investigators to obtain stories about his private life. The 38-year-old says that he was a victim of phone-hacking “on an industrial scale”. The newspapers deny this, saying that they obtained the stories legitimately. Much of the prince’s evidence is circumstantial.
Could this be enough to convince a judge on the balance of probabilities that the younger son of King Charles III is right? If this were to come to pass, others on Fleet Street would worry they could be next. The Duke of Sussex, along with other prominent figures, has also made claims in the high court against Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, the parent company of the Sun and defunct News of the World, and Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. Both Mr Murdoch’s group and the Mirror’s owners have admitted to previous failings and settled other claims.
Tabloid excess has only itself to blame. This newspaper’s investigation sparked the phone-hacking scandal in 2011, which led to the News of the World’s closure, to several prominent journalists going to jail, and triggered more than £1bn in legal fees, associated costs and compensation for victims. A public inquiry into press ethics saw MPs consider regulating the industry. Things have moved on – though not always for the better. All this helps to explain why Fleet Street has repaid the prince’s contempt with the same coin.
The central role of the media in perpetuating monarchy is well known. The symbiotic relationship means that tabloid editors end up as royal spokespeople. The prince’s court appearance raises the stakes for an often infantalising news culture. In a break with royal protocol, he used his appearance to criticise the current government, which he said was, like the press, at “rock bottom”. His claim that democracy is “failed” by journalists who choose to align themselves with the government, rather than holding it to account, is not far-fetched.
Few people can generate the headlines that the prince, and his wife, can with such statements. He can always get a hearing in the court of public opinion. The paradox is that the couple have rewritten the rules of royalty, and not always in bad ways, by behaving as celebrities rather than dutiful public servants. One of the reasons the prince stepped back from royal duties was that he could no longer stick by the family motto: never complain, never explain. Self-effacement was part of the job description. This translates as not saying anything interesting in public. The prince has left that all behind. Where he is going, nobody can say.
