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During his two-and-a-half hours in the witness stand on Wednesday on the third day of his legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), he said it was “disgusting” to hear the Daily Mail publisher claim “in their defence that I don’t have any right to privacy”.
Leaving the courtroom, he continued to appear upset, sniffling as he exited through the door.
The duke said the case against ANL, the publisher of the Mail titles, felt like a “recurring traumatic experience” and a “repeat of the past”, adding: “I have never believed that my life is open season to be commercialised by these people.”
Harry, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, campaigner Baroness Doreen Lawrence, politician Sir Simon Hughes, and actresses Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley are all bringing legal action against ANL over allegations of unlawful information gathering.
This includes claims that information was obtained through unlawful activities such as phone hacking, “blagging” private records, and obtaining flight details.
ANL has strongly denied wrongdoing and is defending the claims.
Giving evidence, the Duke of Sussex denied using a Facebook profile under the name ‘Mr Mischief’ to contact a Mail on Sunday journalist, after it was suggested he “exchanged friendly messages” with her on social media.
Antony White KC, for ANL, alleged, while cross-examining the King’s youngest son, that the duke used the pseudonym to contact the newspaper’s then-diary editor Charlotte Griffiths on Facebook, with the barrister suggesting she moved in the duke’s “social circles”.
Mr White said that Ms Griffiths claimed they met in Ibiza and she socialised with Harry and his friends at a house party on the Mediterranean island in 2011.
But Harry told the court that was not correct, and that he had only ever travelled to Ibiza with his wife the Duchess of Sussex and son Prince Archie.
He described it as as Ms Griffiths’ job to get information out of his friends but that they were aware of this and how the information would be used.
In a frosty exchange, Harry later told the High Court: “My social circles were not leaky, I want to make that absolutely clear.”
He added that if he became suspicious of someone, “I would have to cut contact with this person”.
In his witness statement for the trial, Harry said he has always had an “uneasy relationship” with the press since the death of his mother in 1997, adding: “However, as a member of the institution the policy was to ‘never complain, never explain’.”
He added: “If you complain, they double down on you, in my experience.”
The duke claims 14 articles published by ANL between 2001 and 2013 were based on unlawful information gathering, and were written in a “highly intrusive and damaging way”.
One of the stories complained about by Harry concerned “confidential discussions” he had after a photo of a dying Diana, Princess of Wales was published in the Italian press – an article he described as “beyond cruel”.
In his written evidence, Harry described an article published in the Daily Mail in July 2006 as “really disgusting”, saying he was having private discussions with his brother, the now-Prince of Wales.
Other articles concerned his former girlfriend Chelsy Davy – with Harry telling the court he was “really worried something bad was going to happen” when he was in a relationship with her.
He said in written evidence: “I was never suspicious of Chelsy in relation to stories like this, but I was of her friends. If I saw this story at the time, I would have been very frustrated and angry.”
He added: “This sort of intrusion was terrifying for Chelsy: it made her feel like she was being hunted and the press had caught her and it was terrifying for me too because therewas nothing I could do to stop it and now she was in my world.
“She was ‘shaken’ and I was really paranoid about trying to protect our privacy, as the article says.”
Referring to an article published in 2013, he said it was “creepy” that the Daily Mail had published details of him facing a “lonely New Year’s Eve”. The article referenced details to his previous relationship with Cressida Bonas, and her plans to visit Richard Branson’s island.
“It’s a horrible existence for a young girl to be stalked like this – they probably tracked Cressida or blagged information about her flight, and would have had her under surveillance like they did my other girlfriends.”
He said: “It feels like every aspect of your life behind closed doors is being displayed to the world for amusement, entertainment and money.”
Before his evidence to the court began, a source close to the duke accused ANL of “game-playing and dirty tricks” by failing to inform the court their opening argument would “last less than two hours”.
The source continued: “They think that by pulling the schedule forward 24 hours they are giving Prince Harry less time to prepare – he’s been preparing for this moment for the last three years.
“Safe to say, he’s ready.”
In response, an ANL spokesperson said: “Prince Harry has been in London since the weekend ready to give evidence in this case, which he launched three-and-a-half years ago.
“We don’t intend to dignify this briefing by the other side with any further comment.”
The trial is due to conclude in March, with a judgment due in writing at a later date.
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