Prince Harry has accused Piers Morgan of “earwigging” into his mother’s private messages.
The Duke of Sussex claimed the broadcaster and former Daily Mirror editor listened to Princess Diana’s voicemails, making him feel “physically sick”.
Harry began giving evidence at the High Court on Tuesday in his phone hacking case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).
He is suing the group for damages, claiming journalists at its titles, including the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, were linked to methods including phone hacking, so-called “blagging” or gaining information by deception, and use of private investigators for unlawful activities.
In his witness statement, made public as he began giving evidence, Harry singled out Morgan.
He wrote: “The thought of Piers Morgan and his band of journalists earwigging into my mother’s private and sensitive messages (in the same way as they have me) and then having given her a “nightmare time” three months before she died in Paris, makes me feel physically sick and even more determined to hold those responsible, including Mr Morgan, accountable for their vile and entirely unjustified behaviour.”
Harry accused the Daily Mirror of intercepting voicemails between Diana and former TV entertainer Michael Barrymore.
Morgan has consistently denied knowledge of knowingly commissioning or publishing stories while he was editor of the Daily Mirror based on voicemails obtained illegally.
In a discussion with the BBC last month, Morgan said: “I’ve never hacked a phone. I’ve never told anybody to hack a phone.”
Last month, Morgan told ITV News: “I’m not going to take lectures on privacy invasion from Prince Harry.”
Harry also said he was “shocked and appalled” by the number of payments made by MGN titles to private investigators.
The stories represent a fragment of decades of press coverage that Harry says has warped his entity and those of his friends and loved ones.
In his witness statement, Harry claimed that during his adolescence and young adulthood, tabloids cast him in a role — “the ‘thicko,’ the ‘cheat,’ the ‘underage drinker,’ the ‘irresponsible drug taker.'”
“I ended up custody as though I was playing up to a lot of the headlines and stereotypes that they wanted to pin on me mainly because I thought that, if they were printing this rubbish about me and people believed it, I may as well ‘do the crime,’ so to speak,” Harry said. “It was a downward spiral, whereby the tabloids would constantly try and coax me, a ‘damaged’ young man, into doing something stupid to make a good story and sell lots of newspapers.”
Harry alleged that journalists’ behaviour was ruinous to his mental health, spurring “bouts of depression and paranoia.”
“I now realize that my acute paranoia of being constantly under surveillance was not misplaced after all,” he said.
Many articles deal with Harry’s relationship with Chelsy Davy, his first serious girlfriend. He says the relationship eventually fell apart under media scrutiny and accuses newspapers of trying to wreck his relationships “using whatever unlawful means at their disposal.”
“I always felt as if the tabloids wanted me to be single, as I was much more interesting to them and sold more newspapers,” his statement said. “Whenever I got into a relationship, they were very keen to report the details but would then, very quickly, seek to try and break it up by putting as much strain on it and creating as much distrust as humanly possible, as I shall go into in more detail later in this statement.
Harry, 38, is suing the publisher of the Daily Mirror over 33 articles published between 1996 and 2011 that he says were based on phone hacking or other illegal snooping methods.
The stories represent a fragment of decades of press coverage that Harry says has warped his life and those of his companion and loved ones.
In his witness statement, Harry claimed that during his adolescence and young adulthood, tabloids cast him in a role — “the thicko.’ the cheat,’ the underage drinker,’ the irresponsible drug taker.'”
“I ended up custody as though I was playing up to a lot of the headlines and stereotypes that they wanted to pin on me mainly because I thought that, if they were printing this rubbish about me and people believed it, I may as well do the crime,’ so to speak,” Harry said.
“It was a downward spiral, whereby the tabloids would constantly try and coax me, a damaged’ young man, into doing something stupid that would make a good story and sell lots of newspapers.”
Harry alleged that journalists’ behaviour was ruinous to his mental health, spurring “bouts of depression and paranoia.”
“I now realize that my acute paranoia of being constantly under surveillance was not misplaced after all,” he said.
