Lawyers for a British tabloid publisher being sued by Prince Harry over allegations of phone-hacking and other illegal activity between 1996 and 2011, have described the royal's claim against them as "wildly overstated and substantially baseless."
A London court heard closing arguments in the legal trial brought by a number of high profile figures against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) on Tuesday. The group includes Prince Harry, who made history earlier this month by being the first senior royal to give evidence on the witness stand in over 130 years.
The prince appeared at London's Royal Courts of Justice on June 6 and 7, where he faced an eight-hour grilling by MGN's lawyer, Andrew Green KC. The royal defended his claims to have been the target of unlawful information gathering by MGN titles, including the Daily Mirror.
The publisher admitted one count of unlawful activity in relation to the hiring of a private detective, but denied all allegations of phone-hacking and a number of other claims.
In their closing submissions seen by Newsweek, the publisher's lawyers accused Harry of unfairly targeting their titles as part of his wider campaign to hold the tabloids to account and "reform" the news industry.
"It is impossible not to have enormous sympathy for the [Duke of Sussex] in view of the extraordinary degree of media intrusion he has been subject to throughout his life due to his position in society," they stated, before claiming the royal provided no evidence to support that his phones were hacked or that he was the victim of further illegal activity from MGN journalists.
"Establishing that an individual is a victim of general and widespread media intrusion leading to negative effects at the hands of the press is not the same as demonstrating that he/she is a victim of unlawful voicemail interception and other unlawful information gathering by three specific newspaper titles," they said.
The publisher's legal team then claimed that the prince had focused his wider anger and discomfort at the press in the direction of their client, saying: "The true purpose of this litigation appears not to be to achieve compensation for unlawful activity by MGN, but instead it forms part of the [Duke of Sussex's] campaign to "reform" the British press."
The closing submission then continued: "In seeking to hold one element of the tabloid press to account for intrusion the [Duke of Sussex] believes he has suffered at the hands of all press, irrespective of their involvement or lack thereof in unlawful information gathering, he has advanced a claim which is wildly overstated and substantially baseless."
Harry has made no secret of the fact that he wishes to overhaul the media landscape by exposing intrusive press practices that he feels he has been the victim of. However, he claims he does not "hate" the industry.
In his witness statement provided to the court, the prince said he believed that in order to "save journalism as a profession," journalists need to "expose those people in the media that have stolen or highjacked the privileges and powers of the press, and have used illegal or unlawful means for their own gain and agendas."
"In the same vein, I am bringing this claim, not because I hate the tabloid press or even necessarily a section of it," he said. "But in order to properly hold the people who have hijacked those privileges, which come with being a member of the press, to account for their actions."
In court on Tuesday, David Sherborne, the lawyer representing Harry, claimed that MGN had weakened its defense against the allegations of unlawful information gathering at the publisher's titles by only bringing three witnesses into court, and one of them not being former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan.
The editor of the paper between 1995 and 2004, Morgan is accused of having been aware that information printed had been obtained through the hacking of phones.
Morgan has denied he hacked phones while at the Daily Mirror, and he stated he never commissioned any phone-hacking at the title either. When allegations were made against him in court, Morgan told journalists outside his home in London that he hadn't been paying attention to the trial, but looked forward to reading about Harry's claims "in his next book."
"Rather than come and give evidence to meet [the allegations], he has chosen instead to confine his comments to outside the courtroom," Sherborne said of Morgan on Tuesday, per Reuters. The lawyer claimed that MGN's decision not to ask Morgan to appear in court alongside other journalists accused of wrongdoing "leaves enormous holes, we say fatal holes, in the defendant's case."
With the closing statements completed, the judge, Sir Timothy Fancourt, will consider the evidence provided. His judgement is expected to be handed down later this year.
Harry's MGN lawsuit runs alongside those he currently has filed against Britain's two other major tabloid publishers, Associated Newspapers Limited (publishers of the Daily Mail) and News Group Newspapers (publishers of The Sun).
Newsweek approached representatives of Prince Harry for comment.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
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James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more
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