Prince Harry not in court for phone-hacking trial ‘due to daughter’s birthday’ – live

Read More

The ups and downs and ins and outs of Harry’s relationship with Chelsea Davy were all revealed by the three Mirror titles, Sherborne says.

All the articles have the “tell tale” signs of unlawful information gathering, he says.

Sherborne reads the headline to an article about when the duke met Davy’s father: “When Harry Met Daddy – the biggest danger to wildlife in Africa”.

He says the article was written by journalists with links to unlawful information gathering.

A key part of Harry’s legal case against Mirror Group Newspapers relies on a precedent set by a court case involving a chimney sweep that took place 300 years ago.

The 1722 trial of Armory v Delamirie involved an individual who found a metal piece of jewellery set with gems while cleaning a fireplace. When the chimney sweep had the item valued, a jeweller surreptitiously removed the gems – before handing back a number of empty metal sockets.

The chimney sweep sued and a judge ruled that in the absence of the original gems, it must be assumed that the jewels were of the highest possible value that could fit the empty metal sockets.

The legal ruling set a precedent that if the court can tell that evidence is missing, then the assumption should be that what is missing is of the highest possible value that would fit the hole.

David Sherborne, Prince Harry’s barrister, told the high court on Monday that the Mirror’s mass-deletion of emails potentially relating to Harry’s case was damning. He evoked the chimney sweep’s case from 1722, arguing the judge should interpret the deletion of potential evidence as “inferences of unlawful activity”.

Sherborne evoked the same case in last year’s Wagatha Christie libel trial between Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy. In that trial, he successfully argued that the loss of a mobile phone in the North Sea containing WhatsApp messages should be interpreted as an attempt to hide important evidence.

As Sherborne continues outlining some of the details of articles that are being submitted to back Harry’s claims, it’s worth revisiting his comments earlier about alleged targeting of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

Sherborne said Diana was a “huge target” for MGN’s newspapers, adding that certain unlawful activities in relation to her would have also affected Harry.

He said: “It is part of our case that the interception of her messages would necessarily have involved obtaining information about the young prince.”

Sherborne then turned to letters exchanged between Diana and former television personality and entertainer Michael Barrymore.

He read out two letters from Diana to Barrymore, which referred to meetings between the pair, and in one of the letters Diana referred to being “devastated” to learn the “Daily Mirror” had called her office about him and their meetings.

In the letter, Diana said she had not told anyone about the meetings. Sherborne said: “We say it is plainly that the Daily Mirror has been listening to the voicemail messages and that is how they knew of the secret and highly sensitive meetings between Princess Diana and poor Mr Barrymore.”

The barrister added that Barrymore was “struggling” at the time because it had been made public that he was gay, he was in the process of an “acrimonious” divorce and was being treated for alcohol and drug addiction.

Sherborne said former Mirror editor Piers Morgan referred to hearing rumours about the meetings between Diana and Michael Barrymore in his book The Insider.

The barrister said the reason Mr Morgan had heard was because Mirror journalists would have heard “private messages”.

He also said a letter to Barrymore from Diana in June 1997, just two months before her untimely death, “demonstrates the impact of these activities”.

Sherborne said Diana wrote to Barrymore saying she had not heard from him and hoped his silence was “good news”, adding: “I have had a nightmare time with the tabloids.”

The barrister added: “Mr Barrymore is so frightened off that he does not contact Princess Diana and this is the isolation that this activity causes.”

The court has resumed after a lunch break.

There was an agreement that Princes William and Harry would be left alone after their mother’s death, Sherborne says.

But this did not happen, he says, presenting an article “Prince Harry forced to stop playing rugby due to polo injury”.

Sherborne says the article has all the “tell tale signs” of unlawful information gathering.

Sherborne refers to another article from 2000 concerning Harry’s 16th birthday, which he argues is another occasion of unlawful information gathering.

“It’s a small story,” Sherborne says, about Harry’s birthday celebrations.

Harry turned up “unannounced” at the pub but a photographer knew he would be there, Sherborne says.

The column – 3am – which this story appeared in had a history of phone hacking. The journalists involved have been involved in admitted unlawful information gathering, Sherborne says.

Articles about Harry’s personal distress have “tell tale signs” of unlawful information gathering, Sherborne says, given that Princess Diana was a “huge target” of the Daily Mirror. Evidence of interception of Diana’s phone when Piers Morgan was editor are in documents related to Michael Barrymore, the light entertainer.

Journalists would have learned details of Harry’s life in Diana’s voicemails, Sherborne says.

Sherborne is outlining some more detail about Harry’s claim.

In January 1996, Harry was just 11 years old. It was a time of high interest from the newspapers into the royal family, around the time of then Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s divorce.

The prince was still at school although that “offered little protection” from the Mirror’s unlawful activities, Sherborne says.

He presents a note showing the instruction of the notorious Media Investigations – a trade name for a firm run by private investigator Jonathan Rees.

The payment was made on 3 January 1996 in relation to “Tiggy” – this was Tiggy Legge-Bourke, who was Harry’s nanny and later guardian, Sherborne says.

The journalists who wrote the articles presented as part of Harry’s claim were all frequent users of the unlawful methods of information gathering, and therefore were highly likely to use the same methods in respect to stories about Harry, Sherborne argues.

The hearing has resumed.

Sherborne says Harry was subjected to unlawful activities from when he was a young boy at school, past the tragic death of his mother, through Sandhurst army training and then young adulthood.

There was no area of Harry’s life that wasn’t touched by press interest, including relationships he formed.

“Nothing was sacrosanct and out of bounds, there was no protection from these unlawful methods,” Sherborne says.

Prince Harry’s no-show at the high court has caused a headache for his legal team, who were left explaining that he had chosen to stay in Los Angeles to attend his daughter’s second birthday party, writes media editor Jim Waterson from the high court.

Prince Harry had originally been scheduled to give evidence in his phone-hacking trial against Mirror Group Newspapers on Tuesday. But the judge had asked for him to be in court ready to give evidence on Monday, in case lawyers finished their opening legal arguments earlier than expected.

When the Mirror’s legal team indicated they would speed through their opening arguments, Harry’s team were forced to accept that their client would not be ready in time.

David Sherborne, Harry’s barrister, told the court that his client only left California on Sunday night after prioritising his toddler’s party. As a result Prince Harry would not be available to give evidence in London on Monday afternoon.

Dozens of photographers, television camera crews, and reporters had gathered outside the Rolls Building to capture the arrival of the prince, only to learn he was still dealing with jet lag.

The judge, Mr Justice Fancourt, was visibly irritated by the prince’s failure to be ready to give evidence – although in diplomatic legal language he simply said he was “a little surprised” by the Prince’s absence. Given the case is being heard without a jury, it is considered unwise to anger to annoy the one person who will decide the outcome of the case.

Prince Harry’s legal war on the British media has so many different fronts that it can be hard to keep track of what is going on, writes Jim Waterson.

Every national newspaper – with the exception of the Telegraph, Guardian, and Financial Times – is owned by a company currently being sued by the prince.

In addition to an ongoing libel case against the Mail on Sunday, Harry currently has three entirely separate claims ongoing relating to phone hacking and illegal information gathering.

The cases against the newspaper publishers are:

1) Mirror Group Newspapers: This is the case that is currently being tried at the high court in London. Harry alleges that journalists working for the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, and People both hacked his phone and illegally used private investigators to dig up information for stories.

The Mirror says many of the stories were of a “breath-taking level of triviality”. Harry missed a legal deadline to bring the case and that many of the stories about the prince were not obtained illegally but came from legal sources – including his father’s press officers.

2) News Group Newspapers: A judge is currently deciding whether to allow this case against Rupert Murdoch’s media company to go to trial, with a verdict expected in the coming weeks. Harry alleges that journalists working for the Sun under the editorship hacked his phone and illegally used private investigators to dig up information for stories.

It is already accepted that both Harry had his phone hacked by journalists working for Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World. But News Group Newspapers insists Harry missed a legal deadline to bring the case against the Sun.

3) Associated Newspapers: A judge is currently deciding whether to allow this case to go to trial, with a verdict expected in the coming weeks. Harry – and a group of other claimants including Doreen Lawrence and Elton John – allege that journalists working for the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday used private investigators to carry out illegal information gathering in the search for stories.

The publisher insists the allegations are “preposterous smears” and the underlying evidence is disputed.