Harry’s golf clubs gift story ‘came from his own interview’

A TABLOID story Prince Harry complains was unlawfully obtained actually came from an interview he gave to mark his 18th birthday, High Court documents suggest.

The prince granted the interview to the Press Association in which he disclosed he received a gift of golf clubs from his uncle Earl Spencer and planned to be at home at Highgrove on his big day with his father and brother.

The Daily Mirror published an article, which it says was based on the interview, on September 16, 2002.

It is now one of 140 articles which the Duke of Sussex alleges were obtained through illegal means.

To mark Harry’s birthday, his public relations advisers arranged the interview at St James’s Palace in London. It was released on the Press Association’s wire service, with most newspapers carrying a version of it.

In the High Court this week, the Duke of Sussex claimed his privacy had been invaded by the short article in the Daily Mirror, whose publisher argued that the 161-word article had ‘simply repeated details that the claimant had given’.

It says many of its stories about the Duke of Sussex came not from hacking but from other royals and palace courtiers. Yesterday, on day two of a seven-week trial, the duke’s barrister David Sherborne said former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan had ‘direct involvement’ in unlawful information gathering.

Mr Morgan has always strenuously denied hacking phones or instructing any of his staff to do so.

Mr Sherborne said: ‘What we have, we say, is the direct involvement of Mr Morgan in a number of these incidents. Mr Morgan lies right at the heart of this in a number of ways. He was a very hands-on editor.’

Mr Sherborne said the court would hear evidence from the newspaper’s former political editor David Seymour that Mr Morgan had openly discussed how phone hacking operated when at a dinner with executives. Mr Seymour recalled an incident in which Mr Morgan had obtained a recording of a voicemail left by Sir Paul McCartney, in which the singer sang a Beatles song to Heather Mills in an attempt to patch up an argument.

MGN is contesting the claims, arguing some have been brought too late, and rejecting most of the others. It denies any senior figures had knowledge of unlawful acts.