The Prince and the Press: Continuing the Discussion on Prince Harry and the UK Media

[MrsMaxDeWinter]

A few weeks ago, there were three really great long running threads about Prince Harry and his battles against the UK "popular press."

I thought I would do one that looks at Harry's current court action.

For those interested in the kind of balanced view you won't get from the tabloids, all of whom face conflicts of interest, here is the Guardian take, which is the springboard for this discussion.

It is not possible to take any of the tabloids seriously when they report on Harry's legal cases. Former editor Alan Rusbridger, now of Prospect, has observed that all tabloids covering this story are acting unethically as they have not declared their conflicts of interest: Harry is suing all of their media houses.

The only papers with no conflict of interest are the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Financial Times.

So I will be following this from the Guardian live page.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/04/diana-meghan-and-the-tabloid-press-harry-finally-gets-his-day-in-court

All PH's team have to do is show a pattern of information being published that wasn't available from other means

I don’t think they’ve anywhere near achieved this, from what I’ve seen. There have been alternative explanations given for everything.

Especially being at a public event, or not even having a mobile phone at the time.

Harrys accused the palace of planting and leaking so much, don’t see how he can now argue hacking is the ‘only’ way this info could have got out there

All PH's team have to do is show a pattern of information being published that wasn't available from other means.

But I don't think he's managed to do that. In most if not all of the stories mentioned, the information may have been obtained by other means. Such as by a leak, a tip off, or in some cases, it was already in the public domain. That doesn't rule out hacking, of course, but it certainly doesn't prove, even on the 'balance of probabilities', that that is what occurred.

It only took them 25 years ...

https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/13197482.herald---apology/

I think he should win. Although, of course that doesn't mean he will.

I wouldn't expect him to win on the majority of the articles he's listing because tbh it's blatantly obvious how they could have got into the public domain eg from waiting staff, friends, school mates, etc. But, I would hope there will be one or two that support the hacking hypothesis. There are some legal commentators on social media saying there is quite a lot of evidence to support PH was hacked. Although, as always, with social media, it's difficult to judge the validity of their statements. But, considering the cases already settled, I'd assume PH was hacked and that the court will find in his favour as they have with previous claimants.

All PH's team have to do is show a pattern of information being published that wasn't available from other means. Thanks for clarifying this.

Also note, its week 1 of a 7 week trial.

What other witnesses does Harry have for his portion?
I know there are other claimants to be seen in the next 6 weeks

Did the previous cases have similar amount of evidence?

Hi all,
We're really very glad to see this thread get back on track and we'd like to think that it will remain so. We will be having a word with some posters, but as a general point we'd like to remind posters that we moderate according to our guidelines and our guidelines alone.
Now might be a good opportunity for everyone to familiarise themselves with those guidelines so as not to risk coming a cropper in future. It might be wise to reflect on deleted posts (if you can remember what they were!)
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Thanks!

Don’t they have to have some proof that there weren’t alternative means though? For example when he said he ‘doesn’t think’ Chelsy Davy would have given them her number, wouldn’t they have to actually ask her - in case she says, yes I did - to show that wasn’t the alternative explanation? Also, as the report of that incident was that she ‘screamed at him for half an hour’, but he says no, we spoke briefly about it and I reassured her, isn’t that tacit acknowledgment that the story can’t have come from hacking his call to her? Sorry if this has been covered btw, I’ve only just started to look at this story as I watched the lunchtime news on my break…

Settlements are always made with no admission of liability. It might be argued that one if the reasons why other previous complaints were settled was precisely because the papers could point to other possible sources of information (even if they had in fact also hacked phones)

Hear hear!

@AlexandriasWindmill

thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think he will win, no way he wasn’t hacked too. And maybe that is what the judge will base his decision on. That he is an high profile figure and that was the culture at the time. And maybe that’s why it doesn’t matter that Harry isnt providing anything solid as evidence. I’m not of a legal background at all, so maybe I’m conflating the threshold for civil and legal cases but actually maybe they’re judged completely differently. And if he does win, with his probably happened argument but no evidence, I wonder if it will open the floodgates for other claims.

howverr on another thread another poster helpfully explained other cases had hard mobile data. As no one at that time thiught to hide it as they didn’t even know it was a thing. So then that does make me change my mind a bit on how this will end!

But allegedly PH does have hard data concerning payments, phones, etc. Either they haven't reached it yet or the reporting has obscured it so far.

I don't think he has phone data - didn't the defence barrister ask him why he thought there was data for everyone else but not him, and that's when he said he thought they used burner phones.

He has payments to private investigators which he thinks are suspicious but I'm not sure if he can show that the PIs did anything illegal.

"Allegedly"?

Who is alleging this? It would be odd that he's almost at the end of cross examination and hasn't revealed a shred of this 'hard evidence' yet, wouldn't it?

He has a list of payments that have been made, but he hasn’t been able to tie them to anything specifically.

I presume further along the line, his lawyer will question someone about what they were/what they related to?

He definitely doesn’t have call data, that’s been brought up already, and I think he said his legal team had told it him it was all destroyed?

No matter how you feel about Harry, phone hacking is horrible and if there was any by this company then they absolutely deserve to be punished BUT Harry's team are doing a terrible job. Harry's testimony is weak. His team should've investigated to determine where journalists got their sources for these 33 articles because it's Harry look completely clueless.

Because it's making* Harry look completely clueless

He has basically relied on the coincidence between a payment to a private investigator who has been cited previously as being involved in nefarious acts and the publication of any of the various stories. But what he has not done (and how could he) is link each payment directly to each story. My take is that he is essentially saying “everyone was at it at the time, everyone knows this, there were loads of specific items about me that must have come from hacking”. It’s quite woolly and I think MGN has quite successfully pointed to a variety of other possible sources (including Harry himself!) for each story. I believe that as long as they can do this, and to the extent Harry cannot pinpoint any particular message that was hacked ge is on a sticky wicket legally. Although I absolutely believe his and others’ phones were in fact hacked

Is that to me? The lie about her wetting herself on the stand? Is that what you meant when you said he lied in the article?

Are his legal team doing a terrible job? Or is the evidence just not there?

The analysis mentioned earlier in the thread, about how Harry may have decided he was hacked first, and then got Schillings to find possible articles later, sounds plausible to me.

Even if they are guilty, I don't think there is evidence because phone hacking is extremely hard to prove.

But out of the 33 articles that they chose as evidence to prove the hacking, most of the sources came from other articles or statements released by the palace

I feel bad for him though. This is obviously a lot for him mentally and emotionally

I think they have to prove that on the balance of probabilities it was more likely the information was obtained by unlawful means than other means

I hope he wins. I would feel more comfortable if his win was based on better evidence than he seems to be offering though.

I have conflicted thoughts. I think everyone presumes that because other royals were hacked, he must have been hacked too. But we can’t have the press muzzled based on general vibes. Maybe the next 6 weeks of the case will present more compelling evidence… there are still other witnesses for PH to come.