Prince Harry used his witness statement, lodged with the High Court in his privacy claim against the publisher of the Daily Mail, to rail against the “unchecked power, influence and criminality” of the newspaper group.

 Edited by| Tony Wild

world   section -  CJ journalist

LONDON, March,29,2023  

    He also accused the Royal Family of trying to keep from him the full extent of phone hacking at the now defunct News of the World – owned by News Group Newspapers (NGN) – and claimed that they did not want to pursue litigation because it “could open a can of worms”.

The Duke is one of seven high-profile figures who are suing Associated Newspapers Ltd, alongside Sir Elton John, 76, and his husband David Furnish, 60; Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, 70, the mother of Stephen Lawrence; the actresses Sadie Frost, 57, and Liz Hurley, 57; and Sir Simon Hughes, a former Liberal Democrat MP, 71.

Their witness statements were made public for the first time on Tuesday in a joint claim of alleged unlawful information gathering.

Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail, has applied to have the claims dismissed without a trial on the grounds that they are too old to be considered by the court and that some financial documents relied upon by the claimants were confidentially supplied to the 2012 Leveson inquiry on the Press and were being used in breach of a restriction order and confidentiality undertakings.

The Duke said: “If the defendant, the owner of various national newspapers, including the Daily Mail which, by its own definition, is the most influential and popular newspaper in the UK, can evade justice without there being a trial of my claims then what does that say about the industry as a whole and the consequences for our great country.

“Unfair is not a big enough word to describe the fact that Associated is trying at this early stage to prevent me from bringing my claim.

“If the most influential newspaper company can successfully evade justice, then in my opinion the whole country is doomed.”

The Duke said he became aware that he could bring a separate claim against NGN in 2018 but was discouraged from doing so.

“The institution made it clear that we did not need to know anything about phone hacking and it was made clear to me that the Royal Family did not sit in the witness box because that could open up a can of worms,” he said.

The Duke said the Royal Family policy was to “never complain, never explain” and so he had been “conditioned” to accept it.

He said that it was only when his relationship with his now wife, Meghan, became public in 2016 that he “started to become increasingly troubled” by the family’s approach of not taking action against the press.

Among the Associated Newspapers’ articles, the Duke made his legal complaint are an expose about a “brief but private relationship” with a girl called Laura Gerard-Leigh when he was at Eton; stories relating to his long-term relationship with Chelsy Davy; and one about a “highly emotional” call he had with Prince William when he was 21 concerning photographs of their dead mother.

In her witness statement, Baroness Lawrence accused the Daily Mail of being “in bed with the corruption” that prevented her son’s killers from being jailed.

Baroness Lawrence said she suffered a “new trauma and injustice” over allegations that the Daily Mail bugged her phone and even made “corrupt payments” to serving police officers who had worked on her son’s case.

Baroness Lawrence said she had first been informed of the claims in early 2022, learning that two private investigators – Gavin Burrows and Jonathan Rees – had allegedly been “instructed to target me for ‘internal security’,” which had left her feeling “numb with anger”.

She claimed the Daily Mail had made her a specific target to make sure she was not receiving “buy-up money” from rival newspapers and “to check my political activities with Left-wing groups”.

Stephen Lawrence was 18 when he was murdered in 1993 at a bus stop in Eltham. In 1997, the Daily Mail branded the chief suspects “Murderers” in a famous front page and began a campaign for their prosecution and conviction. Two of the suspects were eventually jailed in 2012 for the teenager’s murder.

But in her witness statement, Baroness Lawrence said: “I cannot think of any act or conduct lower than stealing and exploiting information from a murder and from a mother who buried her son, and by people who pretended to be my friends.

“It has been a new trauma and injustice for me, and it seems that in my son’s death, there was absolutely no one to protect him or me.”

She also alleged “corrupt payments” had been made to police officers, who were suspected of being linked to Clifford Norris, who she described as a “powerful criminal” and father of David Norris, one of the chief suspects. Norris was one of the two men subsequently convicted of her son’s murder.

But in a signed witness statement released by the High Court, Mr. Burrows said the allegations that he had been employed to target the celebrities, including Baroness Lawrence, were “false”.

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    He said: “I wish to make clear that I was never instructed or commissioned by anyone at the Mail on Sunday or the Daily Mail to conduct unlawful information gathering on their behalf.”

In his statement, Sir Elton alleged that his medical records had been hacked by Associated Newspapers, whom he accused of a breach of “basic standards of human decency”.

The pop star claimed that the newspaper group had obtained medical records surrounding the birth of his son Zachary and used them as a basis for stories.

Liz Hurley claimed the newspapers had used a private investigator to tap her landline and place hidden microphones on her windows to gather information for stories about her.

The actress and model also accused Associated Newspapers of sanctioning the theft of her medical records while she was pregnant with her son Damian and other “monstrous, staggering things”.

Sadie Frost said in her statement that her then-husband Jude Law, the actor, “thought the information being published in these stories was being leaked by me. It is a horrible feeling, having the person you love accusing you of something you did not do.”

She claimed she was portrayed as a “money grabbing ex-wife” in stories she claims were based on information hacked by Associated Newspapers.

Ms. Frost said the stories framed her as a woman who wanted a large divorce settlement to maintain her lavish lifestyle.

Associated Newspapers strenuously denies any wrongdoing.

In a statement, it said: “We categorically deny the very serious claims made in this litigation and will vigorously defend them – if that proves necessary.”

It went on: “While the Mail’s admiration for Baroness Lawrence remains undimmed, we are profoundly saddened that she has been persuaded to bring this case.

“The Mail remains hugely proud of its pivotal role in campaigning for justice for Stephen Lawrence.”

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