Prince Harry has struck a defensive tone at the start of his testimony against the publisher of the Daily Mail tabloid newspaper and left the witness box hours later on the brink of tears.
After disputing that reporters used legitimate sources to publish revealing details of his life, he provided an emotional glimpse into the toll that a life in the spotlight and his battle against the British media had taken on him and his family.
“They continue to come after me, they have made my wife’s life an absolute misery,” he said as he choked back tears in London’s High Court on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT).
Harry and six other prominent figures, including Elton John and actor Elizabeth Hurley, allege that Associated Newspapers Ltd invaded their privacy by engaging in a “clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information gathering” for 20 years, attorney David Sherborne said.
The publisher has denied the allegations, called them preposterous and said the roughly 50 articles in question were reported with legitimate sources that included close associates willing to inform on their famous friends.
It is expected to name sources during the nine-week trial.
Harry says he was ‘paranoid beyond belief’
Harry said in his 23-page witness statement that he was distressed and disturbed by the intrusion into his early life by the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday into his early life and it made him “paranoid beyond belief”.
It was Harry’s second time testifying after he bucked House of Windsor tradition and became the first senior royal to testify in a court in well over a century when he took the stand in his similar lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mirror in 2023.
Harry, dressed in a dark suit, held a small Bible in his right hand in London’s High Court and swore to “almighty God that the evidence I shall give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”.
Under the English court practice, Harry presented written testimony of his claims and after asserting it was true under oath, he was immediately put under cross-examination.
After the Duke of Sussex said he preferred to be called Prince Harry, he acknowledged that his 23-page statement was authentic and accurate.
Defence lawyer Antony White, in a calm and gentle tone, began to put questions to Harry to determine if the sourcing of the articles, in fact, had come from royal correspondents working their sources at official events or from friends or associates of the prince.
Harry denied suggestions he was friendly with journalists who covered the royal family or that his friends gave details about him to the tabloids.
“My social circles were not leaky,” he declared.
Increasingly defensive
His curt replies during cross-examination and efforts to explain what it’s like living under what he called “24-hour surveillance” eventually brought the intervention of the judge, who told him not to argue with the defence lawyer.
“You don’t have to bear the burden of arguing the case today,” Justice Matthew Nicklin told the frustrated prince.
As a soft-spoken Harry became increasingly defensive, White said: “I am intent on you not having a bad experience with me, but it is my job to ask you these questions.”
Harry suggested that details in articles had come from eavesdropping on his phone calls or having private investigators snoop on him. He said journalist Katie Nicholl had the luxury to use the term “unidentified source” deceptively to hide unlawful measures of investigation.
“If you complain, they double down on you in my experience,” he said in explaining why he had not objected to the articles at the time.
For decades, Harry has had what he called an “uneasy” relationship with the media, but kept mum and followed the family protocol of “never complain, never explain,” he said.
‘Vicious persistent attacks’
The litigation is part of Harry’s self-proclaimed mission to reform the media that he blames for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash in 1997 while being pursued by paparazzi in Paris.
He also said persistent press attacks on his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, led them to leave royal life and move to the United States in 2020.
He said “vicious persistent attacks”, harassment and racist articles about Meghan, who is biracial, had inspired him to break from family tradition to finally sue the press.
After cross-examination, Harry’s lawyer asked him how he felt about the way Associated Newspapers was defending the case.
Despite having brought the lawsuit and pushed for a trial for accountability, Harry said it was “fundamentally wrong to put all of us through this again” when all he wanted was an apology.
“I have never believed that my life is open season to be commercialised by these people,” he said.
After mentioning his wife, who is not a party in the case, Harry choked up and appeared to be holding back tears as he stepped out of the witness box and walked slowly out of the courtroom.