Cat-like and hiding his claws, the former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre slunk low in the witness box as he whispered his evidence in the long-running case of Prince Harry vs the publishers of his very own newspaper group.
In the bland, strip-lit courtroom, the editor-in-chief of DMG Media was a far cry from his own mythology. In legend, he has long been a frightening, Nosferatu-type figure, stalking around his Kensington lair and striking fear into the hearts of those who work for him. Today, he sat shadowed but shrunken, black-clad and a frail 77, his hoarse voice barely audible as he said, simply and repeatedly, “I don’t know”, and, “I can’t remember”, and, “I may have been off that day”.
