Duke of Sussex court case: key witness statement false

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I looked for another thread on this but didn't see one.

The story is about the case Prince Harry (and 6 others) are bringing against the Daily Mail (Associated Newspapers) for phone hacking. Back in July the claimants were told to reveal any payments that were made to witnesses in exchange for evidence; this seems more serious.

From what I can gather the main witness (Gavin Burrows) in the case was employed by the claimants' team over a couple of years to help research into the phone hacking by different organisations and to track down relevant people. He says he was asked on several occasions if he had worked for the Daily Mail and always denied it, and the first he knew of the current case was when he heard in 2023 that Baroness Lawrence had brought it based on his evidence.

Apparently Burrows wrote a statement at that time (2023) denying the claims and has now written a more detailed statement also denying the claims.

The claimants now don't want to call him as a witness (unsurprisingly) but do want to rely on (some of) his evidence as 'hearsay evidence'.
They also don't want Associated Newspapers to be allowed to call him as a witness.

Telegraph archive link
https://archive.is/YAjNq

I haven't heard before of 'hearsay evidence' being used like this - does anyone know the rules? How can it be tested?

He went to Ibiza with Cressida Bonas!
He will be saying he never went to Vegas next!

He's been told in past cases that they're not to be treated as a public inquiry, but I doubt it'll have gone in when what he really wants to do is yammer about his "feelz"

The resentment around having to prove something rather than simply have his word taken for it was to be expected, but if he loses it in the witness box so be it ... it's his case, this isn't Oprah talking and he can't go unquestioned no matter how much he'd like to

Meghan will be pissed off.

I'm reading the BBC summary and so far it's going:

You talked to X
They made me

You are abroad with Y
No i wasnt

Your friends partied with Z
They won't talk to her

I'm not seeing any evidence from Harry that the claims are wrong. Am i missing something. Surely you can't make a case by just saying things?

Also from his witness statement
He says seeing these articles drove him "paranoid beyond belief" and that the papers wanted to "drive me to drugs and drinking to sell more of their papers".

As opposed to just taking drugs and drinking for his own purposes?

How can he be considered a reliable witness 😂

AW asking about Rebecca English, who was then royal correspondent so part of the press corps for engagements (now royal editor at DM)

He says it was "a pretty hard thing" to be "forced" to work alongside these people, despite them sharing articles about his private life.

Antony White KC, for ANL, says English recalls that Prince Harry told her he read everything published about him, and he had a notebook where he wrote down who published what about him. Prince Harry says he doesn't recall this.

When asked again why he didn't complain to English about articles being written, the prince says: "Hindsight is a beautiful thing, Mr White."

I thought that bit sounded wrong! How can he get away with lying, is no one going to point out it isn't true?

Thank you for the updates .
He really is in danger of losing the plot .,

Where is Maxine Peake when you need her ? 😂

Continuing to ask Prince Harry about his relationship with Daily Mail royal editor Rebecca English, Antony White KC says there were two occasions where Harry had private calls with her.

Prince Harry says if true, he was "probably advised to say thank you to her".

As @MrsLeonFarrell says, so far he hasn't been a great witness to suggest any wrongdoing. I'm assuming that ANL have plenty of evidence to support them (I read somewhere 480 pages vs 180 pages for claimants).

Will Rebecca English, Katie Nicholl etc be called as witnesses ?

I didn't know he sued them. I hadn't remembered that fabulous retort, utterly brilliant.

Re Harry's statement

In it, he says private information, being attributed to sources and friends by the papers, led him to suspect those close to him were providing tips to journalists, rather than the details being gathered by unlawful means.

Harry gives an example of an article from 2005, about his then-relationship with Chelsy Davy, which included information "that goes into an extraordinary level of detail" and made him feel he was "part of an endless pursuit, a campaign, an obsession of having every aspect of my life under surveillance".

He says seeing these articles drove him "paranoid beyond belief" and that the papers wanted to "drive me to drugs and drinking to sell more of their papers".

@MrsLeonFarrell I hope so.
It’s on MoS Pinterest!!

Surely you can't make a case by just saying things?

You can when you're Harry, @MrsLeonFarrell, or rather you can try.
After all if you've been raised among people whose only response is "yes sir", the real world world must be difficult

And FWIW I didn't think there was anything to show he'd visited Ibiza with Cressida?

I don't know if they'll be called, but as far as I can tell a lot of them have given written statements. This was part of Antony White's opening statement yesterday:

White says although the allegations are made against ANL the company, they are "in reality made against the individual journalists".
He called the allegations "very serious". All of the journalists would have to be lying to the court about the articles - this has an "inherit improbability", White argues.
His next point is that most articles were written between 15-20 years ago.
It's a "striking feature" of ANL's defence that it has been able to obtain evidence from almost all of the journalists that wrote the articles in question, explaining to their best recollection the sourcing of articles.
Though it's inevitable, given the length of time, that some circumstances have change e.g. some have died, some have retired, others have moved to new companies, White says.
This makes it "more striking" that they have produced so much evidence, White adds.
"The fact that they are willing and able to do so speaks volumes of the culture" of ANL, he says.

From Sky coverage

Judge Nicklin once again gently reminds Harry he does not need to argue his case here, that there will be opportunity for his own lawyer to do so later.
However, Harry says he is not speaking out because he feels "pressure" to do so. He says he feels ANL has done a "good job" of "stripping out" colour from the points they are making, and so he wants to add context

Surely this would be exactly what his counsel would advise him against doing?

Less is more, Harry.

I think it was The Sun he sued.

After the case had finished, he released the single "I'm Still Standing".

A masterclass in PR.

Next, court turns its attention to an article written by Daily Mail royal editor Rebecca English in December 2004 - it's titled "How Harry Fell in Love" and is about his relationship with Chelsy Davy.
In the article, there's a scene described whereby Harry reportedly sits around a campfire in Botswana, telling people next to him that he's fallen in love with Davy.
Harry says in his witness statement that he would not share such information with "strangers around a campfire".
Antony White KC, for ANL, suggests Harry wrote about this incident in his novel Spare, published in 2023, and goes on to show an excerpt which sees Prince Harry tell three close friends of his "need to see Chelsy again".
Prince Harry says White's suggesting his friends were the sources, which "would be an extraordinary thing".
Put to him that English's evidence is that someone who was sat at the campfire called the paper and gave the tip, Harry says: "You're trying to force this quote into the book without reference or acknowledgement that these were three of my closest friends."

No idea what Harry's trying to say here - that it didn't happen? But he's written about it himself?

Sorry ! Thats me literally off the phone ( all echos and hive connected) from mil! , I’ve obviously missed loads!

He tells the judge that he wants the court to know what it’s like living in that world.

Not really the point of a court case ...

We now move onto an article about Prince Harry's relationship with Cressida Bonas. It was published on 27 December 2013, and says that they spent Christmas apart as she had travelled to Richard Branson's island.
In his witness statement, Prince Harry writes: "Again, this article is creepy. Kensington Palace should not be talking about private matters, but just because someone said Cressida’s not coming for Christmas, how did they know she was on Richard Branson’s island?"
The story was inaccurate, the court hears, and Prince Harry's press secretary reached out and corrected journalist Rebecca English.
Antony White KC suggests that his press office would give guidance and information to the press about him. Prince Harry says it's their job to give guidance, but they would not give information.
The duke says the press secretaries would provide information on things that "affect the entire institution yes. My love life, no".

@IAmATorturedPoet I am joking here but in the way of the best courtroom dramas I would love to see you bang in through the back doors of the court stride to the front waving a printout of that Pinterest post. Possibly missing out - "you want the truth , you can't handle the truth" Oh that is just me amusing myself. ( answer = yes) 😂

The duke says the press secretaries would provide information on things that "affect the entire institution yes. My love life, no"

Please help me make this make sense!!
Isnt he always whining about the palace machine leaking stories to protect others!

I guess this is just his truth and he genuinely believes that is all that’s needed in a court of law cos he’s Prince Harry