LONDON — Prince Harry mentioned phone-hacking was carried out on an industrial scale throughout the British press and he would really feel a way of injustice if the High Court in London dominated he had not been a sufferer.
Harry, the primary senior British royal to present proof in courtroom for greater than 130 years, was being grilled within the witness field for a second day on Wednesday over his allegations that tabloids had used illegal means to focus on him since he was a baby.
He confronted virtually 5 hours of cross-examination on Tuesday from Andrew Green, the lawyer for Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), the writer of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, which he and 100 others are suing over allegations of widespread illegal information-gathering between 1991 and 2011.
Continuing his forensic questioning on Wednesday, Green mentioned there was no cell phone information to point that Harry had been the sufferer of phone-hacking and contrasted it with a 2005 police investigation that led to the conviction of the previous royal editor at Rupert Murdoch’s now defunct News of the World paper.
“If the court were to find that you were never hacked by any MGN journalist, would you be relieved or would you be disappointed?” Green requested the prince, the fifth-in-line to the throne.
Harry replied: “That would be speculating…I believe phone-hacking was on an industrial scale across at least three of the papers at the time and that is beyond doubt.
“To have a choice towards me and every other those that come behind me with their claims, provided that Mirror Group have accepted hacking…sure, I’d really feel some injustice,” he said.
In response to Green’s suggestion that Harry wanted to have been a victim, the prince replied: “Nobody needs to be phone-hacked.”
Papers say ‘no evidence’ Harry was hacked
MGN, now owned by Reach, has previously admitted its titles were involved in phone-hacking the illegal interception of mobile voicemails settling more than 600 claims, but Green has said there was no evidence Harry had ever been a victim.
He argued that some of the personal information had come from, or was given with the consent of, senior Buckingham Palace aides.
Harry and the other claimants, however, are arguing during the seven-week trial that senior editors and executives at MGN knew about and approved of the unlawful behavior.
In his 50-page written witness statement and in questioning, Harry has said the press had blood on its hands, destroyed his adolescence, ruined relationships with friends and girlfriends, and sowed paranoia and mistrust since 1996 when he was a schoolboy.
He also broke royal protocol to say he believed the British government as well as the media had hit “all-time low,” while his anger at suggestions his mother, Princess Diana, was a victim of phone-hacking before her death in 1997 was also clear.
As on Tuesday, Harry again appeared relaxed, speaking firmly but softly, as Green quizzed him in detail over 33 newspaper articles whose details Harry claims were obtained unlawfully.
Green, who has described some of the prince’s allegations as “whole hypothesis,” pressed him on what stories about his private life he considered would be in the public interest.
“A life-threatening damage,” Harry said. “I’m positive there are others.” — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
