Prince’s media lawsuit reaches court, but Harry is a no-show
A broken thumb, a back injury, dabbling with drugs and dating girls.
No event in the life of a young Prince Harry was too trivial or private for the journalists of Mirror Group Newspapers to resist, and the demand for such scoops led to the use of illegal means to dig up dirt, his lawyer said Monday in the opening of his phone hacking lawsuit.
“Nothing was sacrosanct or out of bounds and there was no protection from these unlawful information-gathering methods,” attorney David Sherborne said.
But a defence lawyer said it would have been foolish to spy on a figure like Harry with such tight security, and he rejected allegations that Mirror Group reporters ever eavesdropped on his phone’s voice messages.
“There is simply no evidence capable of supporting the finding that the Duke of Sussex was hacked, let alone on a habitual basis,” attorney Anthony Green said. “Zilch, zero, nil, nada, niente, nothing.”
Harry’s showdown with the publisher of the Daily Mirror in his battles with the British press got off to an anticlimactic start when the star failed to show up — to the chagrin of the judge and defence lawyer.
Harry was unavailable to testify that afternoon because he’d taken a flight Sunday from Los Angeles after the birthday of his two-year-old daughter, Lilibet, Sherborne said.
“I’m a little surprised,” said Justice Timothy Fancourt, noting he had directed Harry to be prepared to testify.
Green said he was “deeply troubled” by Harry’s absence.
The case against Mirror Group is the first of the prince’s several lawsuits against the media to go to trial, and one of three alleging tabloid publishers unlawfully snooped on him in their cutthroat competition for scoops on the royal family.
When he enters the witness box, Harry, 38, will be the first member of the British royal family in more than a century to testify in court. He is expected to describe his anguish and anger over being hounded by the media throughout his life, and its impact on those around him.
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