The trials and tribulations of Harry - thread 2

[TrashyPanda]

Continuation of

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_royal_family/4812092-ph-lost-bid-to-challenge-for-right-to-pay-home-office-for-his-security?page=10&reply=126688485

Gosh he's a terrible witness - it seems to me that it's a case of if Harry doesn't like the story, then it's not in the public interest. Of course preferential treatment is a story that count's as public interest - whoever is on the receiving end of it.

Green suggests that a story about a royal receiving preferential treatment at a military academy, or stories about a royal taking drugs, might be “public interest”.
Harry disagrees, says they are not, so Green asks him: “What constitutes a public interest story?”
Harry replies: “I’m not entirely sure, other than speculating.”
“A life threatening injury,” Harry continues. “I’m sure there are others.”

Not quite. Green is still ploughing through the articles he’s on number 22 out of 33. Could be in for the long haul again today!

It reminds me from that line from Bob Dylan : "..the Princess and the Prince discuss what's real and what is not" 🙄

“Prince Harry spoke directly to the judge a short time ago.

Andrew Green KC, for the Mirror Group, responded: "Could I ask the questions?"

“Prince Harry revealed in a separate court case that the publisher of the Sun secretly paid Prince William, his brother, a financial settlement to drop his phone hacking claim.

In court today Harry put a value on that deal, suggesting Prince William was personally paid £1m by Rupert Murdoch’s media business in 2020 to drop his legal case.

If correct, this would be biggest ever hacking payout on record.”

I suppose if I were a nefarious royal reporter/editor, I might have used phone hacking to get the germ of a story, but made sure I could ‘stand it up’ by other means - asking waiters , friends, the palace, etc,etc.

So plausible deniability

Mumsnut

actually they prob woudl approach people once they had the nugget for extra details etc - and prob so much easier to get people to spill the beans if they went in already knowing a kernel!

Ah, fuck you Harry.

This is what I mean, the man’s just a prick.

If you believe you were hacked, let that be what you’re talking about. This is nothing to do with his case, just pure spite.

He's said similar before, and I'm not sure that referring to an out of court settlement as a secret payment is going to strike the right note.

I wonder if the back story is that he tried to get the same payout from them from virtually not intrusion by comparison (being his usual obsessively competitive self) - they refused which led to this claim.

We are back to the sibling rivalry as being the dominant motivation and justification for all his shortcomings and problems.

Reading the sky feed

In his witness statement, the royal says the journalist who wrote the article - Dean Rousewell - is "well-known in this litigation as having used unlawful information gathering techniques himself, and also a habitual commissioner of private investigators, including JJ Services and Commercial & Legal Services".

That’s a phrase I’ve seen him use a few times now: X is well know in this litigation.

No point to that, but just an observation.

His comments that at the time of the NOTW arrests and convictions “no one knew it was phone hacking” and Buckingham Palace thought it was a one-off event are just flat wrong.

He’s not read the Leveson report (which, you know, if this is his life’s work you think he might have bothered). Nor talked to his former Private Secretary or his brother either. 🙄

“Prince Harry spoke directly to the judge a short time ago."

Why does he keep doing this?

Surely his very expensive brief must have explained basic courtroom etiquette especially when he did the same yesterday.

“Green calls Harry up on an earlier statement the royal made about stories that are not in the “public interest”.

“There’s a difference between public interest and what interests the public,” Harry says.

Green suggests that a story about a royal receiving preferential treatment at a military academy, or stories about a royal taking drugs, might be “public interest”.

Harry disagrees, says they are not, so Green asks him: “What constitutes a public interest story?”

Harry replies: “I’m not entirely sure, other than speculating.”
“A life threatening injury,” Harry continues. “I’m sure there are others.”

So when it is about him - only things are serious as life threatening injury are acceptable as being in the public interest to be disclosed.

So his private medical details -
off limits
Him telling the world William is circumcised - fine
He has a fight with Chelsy - off limits
William pushes him over - fine
He’s having an 18birthday party -
not fine
His dad sleeps with a teddy bear - fine

Basically he wants to stop anyone writing anything about him he doesn’t like but he wants to be free to say whatever he wants about other people.

Thanks for clearing that up Harry

That does not sound remotely plausible. The largest payout so far has been £260k. That was for sustained hacking (at least twice a day), with articles printed about the claimant's self harm and suicide attempts and pictures of her at AA meetings. There haven't been any such salacious articles about William, and the starting point for phone hacking alone with no resulting articles printed is £10k per year of hacking. I think we can all agree that William was not hacked twice a day, every day, for the last 100 years.

Does he know the exact amount as this was the figure that was rumoured to have been donated to Invictus by William?

Article from April about William's settlement

Murdoch firm ‘paid secret phone-hacking settlement to Prince William’ | Prince William | The Guardian

It seems to have been made public by Harry, and I didn't really follow what he was saying about it. It seems that the RF, principally PW, was pursuing a settlement on behalf of all the RF. Harry was aware of this no later than 2017, at which point he dropped out from it (out-of-court settlement paid to PW in 2020)

We have only Harry's word about secret deals some time before 2012, and unless he can actually come up with some form of corroboration, I'm taking that with a large pinch of salt (given how weirdly he's described the rest of the series of events)

@Rinoachicken Spot on, and why I personally have such an issue with Harry. (His wife too, but that's a different thread).

Referring to Williams settlement as a 'secret deal' is emotive, spiteful talk by Harry designed to make it look as though this was some back room deal. Many out of court settlements are deemed private and confidential (aka secret), but referring to them as 'secret' diminishes their legitimacy

Sorry if this is a silly question.

if Williams pay out was menat to be in secret, does that mean murdoch woudl have said I’ll pay you off but keep quiet. In my limited experience, I’ve had to sign an nda to receive compensation. I guess it’s the same principle?

so shoudl Harry have even mentioned that? Isn’t that then in breach?

Oh, and Catherine's phone (I believe she was also part of this 'deal' was hacked over 500 times.

@MayQueeen As above secret is simply a confidential settlement out of court. Harry was not a signatory to it, so therefore he (I guess) would not be bound by it? Presumably William could sue him for breach of confidentiality ?? 🤣. Basically I don't know

why is he bringing William into things?

isn’t him talking about it just as intrusive as the press he is complain8ng about

The judge needs to exert his authority.

Nobody els3 would repeatedly get away with this.

Ah funnily enough this is now being discussed on the other thread, the preferential treatment! And if anyone else breached a confidential thingy, I’m sure they’d be worried about a convequence !