Prince Harry claims Piers Morgan's Mirror hacked Princess Diana
By Victoria Ward|
Mirror journalists working under the editorship of Piers Morgan hacked the phone of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Duke of Sussex's barrister has claimed.
David Sherborne said it was "obvious" that Morgan had obtained private information about the late princess from her voice messages.
As the barrister opened the duke's case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), he said the late princess had become a "huge target" for the publisher, adding that its unlawful activities would have also affected her son.
He said: "It is part of our case that the interception of her messages would necessarily have involved obtaining information about the young prince."
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Prince Harry is suing MGN, claiming that he was the victim of unlawful information gathering, including phone hacking.
He has pleaded 140 articles published in the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and The People between 1996 and 2010, which he alleged were obtained through illegal means.
Of those, 33 have been selected as a sample on which to base his case.
Letters to Michael Barrymore
Sherborne read out extracts of letters sent between the late princess and Michael Barrymore, the British TV personality and entertainer, in 1997, shortly before she died.
Barrymore was "struggling" at the time because it had been made public that he was gay. He was in the process of an "acrimonious" divorce, and was being treated for alcohol and drug addiction.
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In one letter, dated April 25, 1997, the late princess said she was "devastated" to hear the Mirror had been calling her office for information about various meetings between them.
"No one here had any idea," she wrote. "My private and precious matter has become public property."
Sherborne then quoted from Morgan's 2005 biography, The Insider, in which he wrote of Barrymore: "The TV comic has recently been treated in a clinic for booze and drug addiction, and I'd heard rumours that Diana had been secretly comforting him."
The barrister told the court: "How he heard, we say, is obvious."
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He added: "We say it is plainly that the Daily Mirror has been listening to the voicemail messages, and that is how they knew of the secret and highly sensitive meetings between Princess Diana and poor Mr Barrymore."
'Nightmare with the tabloids'
In one letter, the late princess said she had endured "a nightmare with the tabloids" and told him she was there if he ever wanted to talk.
However, Sherborne claimed Barrymore had been "so frightened off" after the details of their meetings became public knowledge that he did not make contact.
"This is the isolation that this activity causes," he added.
Andrew Green, representing MGN, said the claim that MGN journalists hacked a phone belonging to Diana, Princess of Wales, was "total speculation without any evidential basis whatsoever".
He said: "The letters to Michael Barrymore are not evidence of voicemail interception and there is no other evidence. Plainly, no such finding can be made."
Failure to appear
The duke was rebuked by Mr Justice Fancourt for skipping the first day of his claim.
Prince Harry failed to appear for the opening of his case against the newspaper group as he spent Sunday celebrating the birthday of his daughter, Princess Lilibet, with his family in California, the court was told.
The judge said he was "a little surprised" that his directions had not been followed.
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He said it had been anticipated that witnesses might be needed earlier than the draft timetable allowed "and that's why I directed that the first witness should be available".
Sherborne replied: "I hear what your lordship says."
The barrister had argued the duke was in "a different category from the three other claimants due to his travel and security arrangements".
He added that "it was never anticipated that the openings would not take the whole day".
After several minutes discussing the duke absence, the judge said he did not want to spend any more time on the matter "as it appears nothing can be done".
No time 'when he was safe'
Sherborne told the court the duke was subjected to such unlawful information gathering from when he was a young boy at school จC through the death of his mother, army training and into early adulthood จC that there was "no time in his life when he was safe" from such activity.
"Nothing was sacrosanct or out of bounds, and there was no protection from these unlawful information-gathering methods."
The barrister told the judge that as none of the journalists who wrote the relevant articles had been called to give evidence, he should infer that "it is more likely than not" that the information was obtained unlawfully.
The judge asked Sherborne if that should still be the inference if the same story appeared in a different newspaper the previous day and even if the Mirror journalists had not included any new information.
"Yes, because the evidence is unchallenged," Sherborne replied. "The evidence is that journalists would be expected to find some new angle or to further the story."
Barrymore declined to comment when approached by The Telegraph UK.
MGN denies the allegations.
The case continues.
? Telegraph Media Group Limited 2023.
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