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Phone hacking case: Prince Harry blames press for break-up with girlfriend Chelsy Davy
Prince Harry faced cross-examination in London HC over the royal’s claims that its publications obtained stories related to his private life by unlawful means.
Britain’s Prince Harry on Wednesday faced severe cross-examination at the high court in London from the barrister representing the Mirror Group Newspapers over the royal’s claims that its publications obtained stories related to his private life by unlawful means, including phone hacking.
Prince Harry's case against Mirror Group Newspapers primarily revolves around leaked information regarding his relationship with his former girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, a Zimbabwe-born businesswoman, The New York Times reported. Both dated on and off from early 2004 until mid-2010. In his written testimony submitted to the high court on Tuesday, Harry stated that both his and Davy's phones were repeatedly hacked during their relationship.
Despite being in a long-distance relationship, Harry and Davy frequently spoke over the phone. Newspaper articles regularly disclosed private conversations between them, which Mirror journalists could not have obtained legitimately. Harry asserted that these conversations were only accessible through illicit means, the NYT report added.
Also Read: 10 key revelations from Prince Harry's high court testimony
Many of Prince Harry's allegations concern tabloid coverage of his breakup with Davy, who is now married and known as Chelsy Yvonne Cutmore-Scott. As supporting evidence, he pointed to an article claiming that Davy berated him over the phone for flirting with another woman at a party. According to Harry's written testimony, these specific details about their phone conversations were not attributed to any sources.
Relationships destroyed
Many of the articles deal with Prince Harry's relationship with Davy. He said the relationship eventually fell apart under media scrutiny, and accuses newspapers of trying to wreck his relationships “using whatever unlawful means at their disposal".
“I always felt as if the tabloids wanted me to be single, as I was much more interesting to them and sold more newspapers,” his statement said.
“Whenever I got into a relationship, they were very keen to report the details but would then, very quickly, seek to try and break it up by putting as much strain on it and creating as much distrust as humanly possible, as I shall go into in more detail later in this statement.
“This twisted objective is still pursued to this day even though I'm now married,” he said.
He also said the article with the headline "Hooray Harry Dumped", published in 2007, was "celebrating" the end of his relationship - which the newspaper group’s barrister, Andrew Green, firmly denied.
"'Hooray Harry Dumped' was hurtful to say the least," Harry said. "That such a private moment was turned into a bit of a laugh and the fact that these payments (to private investigators) were referred to as 'Project Harry' is incredibly disturbing.
"The level of surveillance that I was under was quite something."
Green replied that the article quoted a friend of Harry's girlfriend as saying "she just got tired of his hooray lifestyle", adding: "It's not celebrating the demise of your relationship."
Prince Harry cross-examined
On the second day of his witness statement, the 38-year-old Duke of Sussex was taken through the articles narrowed down for the purpose of the legal case and questioned at length over why he believes they were obtained unlawfully.
It included articles referring to his relationship with his Davy and his military career serving in Afghanistan.
Harry told the court that he was convinced that "phone hacking was on an industrial scale" and that he "would feel an injustice if it wasn't accepted".
The newspaper group’s barrister, Andrew Green, suggested the royal is in the “realms of speculation” and challenged him on claims that his ex-girlfriend’s phone was being hacked at the time.
Taking him through the various articles published in the group’s ‘Daily Mirror’, ‘Sunday Mirror’, and ‘Sunday People’ titles, Green cast doubts over Harry’s claims and also raised the issue of some stories being in the public interest.
Harry countered to suggest that stories about injuries he has suffered could only be of public interest if it was “life-threatening”.
Harry, who stepped back as a working royal and now lives in the US with wife Meghan Markle and his two children Archie and Lilibet, flew in over the weekend to give evidence in the trial.
