Principal Harper testifies in court-phone-hacking tabloid newspaper after Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked by a tabloid

LONDON — In the days after 13-year-old Milly Dowler went missing on her way home from school in 2002, her parents kept calling her cell phone. Her voicemail box was always full.

Four days later it suddenly rang through to her cell phone. Someone had checked her messages. Sally and Bob knew that their daughter was alive and well and wanted to check her messages in real time.

But it was false hope. Milly had not checked her voicemail that day. She was murdered by a serial killer by then. Her phone was hacked by a tabloid newspaper.

The phone-hacking scandal that engulfed the British tabloids in the early 2000’s was set in motion by the revelation that Milly had her phone hacked. It led to the closure of the News of the World tabloid and since then Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers have paid more than $1 billion to settle hacking claims.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/05/1180093436/prince-harry-testifies-in-court-phone-hacking-tabloid

The Duchess of Sussex will testify in the Mirror Phone-Hacking Trial – The Boundary for the Testimony

The Duke of Sussex is set to testify this week, likely starting on Tuesday, in one of the only phone-hacking lawsuits to go to trial rather than be settled. It is the first time that a senior British royal has testified in court.

Harry is one of a number of claimants suing the Mirror’s publishers, the Mirror Group, for using what they say were unlawful methods to obtain stories — including phone hacking.

Alice Enders, a media analyst, says that Harry is the only one who is able to see the legal battle through.

“There’s clearly a large extent to which he blames the press for the collapse of his [past] relationships and also for the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was being chased by paparazzi when she was in a car crash in 1997,” says Jim Waterson, media editor for the UK’s Guardian newspaper. “You just have to read his filings in various legal cases to see that he loathes the British tabloid media more than anything in the world.”

Harry has also accused the British media of being racist in its coverage of his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, prompting the couple to move to the United States in 2020.

But giving evidence in court will not be without its own risks. He will also have to make his case against the Mirror. He is expected to face questioning about his own personal life — which could include questions about his mother Diana and his relationships before his marriage to Markle.

On Monday, the judge in the Mirror trial was visibly annoyed and admonished Harry’s lawyers for their client’s failure to show up in person for the start of opening statements. He is expected to take the stand.

Later Tuesday, Harry was being cross-examined by the Mirror Group’s lawyer, a man renowned in London legal circles for being a “beast in the court.” Andrew Green has been combing through the newspaper articles to find holes in Harry’s argument.

“The tabloids would publish articles about me that were often wrong but also accompanied by a small amount of truth, which I believe were most likely gleaned from voicemail intercept and/or unlawful information gathering,” he said in his statement.

The prince began to suspect that his phone calls were being monitored. He said that articles would include “snippets of truth.”

On Monday, the prince was criticized for not showing up in court for the start of the trial, with the judge saying he was a “little surprised” by his absence.

Since the 19th century, the royal has testified in court. He arrived at the High Court in London dressed in a dark suit, passing the crowds of photographers and journalists gathered outside. He sat in the corner of the courtroom with a wood-paneled box. His lawyer confirmed that he would be referred to as “Prince Harry” on the first reference, after he was sworn in.

Those are some of the first words in Prince Harry’s witness statement at the High Court in London, where he was giving evidence against the publisher of The Daily Mirror. His statement was released to the media as he took the stand.

In it, Harry described the toll press intrusion had on him and his relationships, saying news stories “played a destructive role” as he grew up. The tabloids’ behavior led to a downward spiral in his teenage years.