The Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry entered the witness box in a hearing to denounce the “destructive” role the British tabloids played in his life. However, the newspaper’s attorney questioned him about how he was able to attribute his suffering, to articles that he couldn’t recall reading.
By swearing to disclose the “whole truth and nothing but the truth” before the High Court of London, while holding a Bible in his right hand, the Duke of Sussex made history as the first senior official from the Royal Family to give evidence in court, in more than a century.
The Daily Mirror’s publisher, according to Harry, has been employing illegal methods on an “industrial scale” to get front-page stories on his life.
Harry said to the counsel of the Mirror Group Newspapers, Andrew Green that, he had “experienced hostility from the press since I was born.” The prince claimed that the tabloids had “a destructive role in my growing-up.”
Prince Harry was very quickly compelled to admit that, among the dozens of pieces he claimed had been written about him, he wasn’t sure he could remember the 33 particular ones he had been complaining about.
“Is it realistic, when you have been the subject of so much press intrusion by so many press, both domestic and international, to attribute specific distress to a particular article from 20 years ago, which you may not have seen at the time,” Green queried Harry. Harry remarked, “It isn’t a specific article, it’s all the articles.” “Every single article has caused me distress,” he said.
Harry claimed the articles made him anxious, depressed, and suspicious of his friends, because he believed they were providing information to the media. His social circle decreased, broke up relationships, and he continually felt under the spotlight of the journalists who were determining the course of his life.
“I genuinely feel that in every relationship that I’ve ever had be that with friends, girlfriends, with family or with the army, there’ve always been a third party involved, namely the tabloid press,” Harry wrote in a statement.
Green constantly pressed Harry to name the individual pieces in which he had proof of phone hacking, but Harry said to Mr. Green to consult the journalist who employed him for their service. He kept mentioning how incredibly dubious the method of gathering the information was.
When questioned how journalists might have hacked his phone for a story about his 12th birthday, a time when he claimed he didn’t own a cell phone, the Duke said, they might have hacked his mother, the late Princess Diana’s phone. Mr. Green remarked, “That’s just speculation you’ve come up now.”
The lawyer continued by pointing out that, it was clear from the same article’s reference that, he had poorly handled his parents’ divorce. Harry answered, “I think so, like most kids.”
However, the prince claimed that, reporting such material was illegal, and that “the methods by which it was obtained seem incredibly suspicious.” Green then emphasized that his mother had previously spoken to reporters in public, about the challenges her children experienced after the divorce.
The Duke of Sussex has made it his objective to make the British media responsible, for what he perceives to be their pursuit of him and his family. Throughout his memoir, “Spare,” and other interviews, Harry expressed his rage towards the British press, and occasionally at his own royal relatives for what he perceives as their cooperation with the press.
