The royal family, according to Prince Harry, withheld information about phone hacking from him because they did not want him to file a claim because it would “open a can of worms.”
READ ALSO: I‘ll quit boxing if Jermaine Franklin beats me – Anthony Joshua
In court, Prince Harry is suing Associated Newspapers, the publisher of The Daily Mail. The Duke of Sussex is one of several claimants, including Sir Elton John, who accuse the publisher of violations of privacy, including wiretapping and bugging people’s homes.
In a witness statement submitted as part of his civil case against Associated Newspapers, Prince Harry stated that he was raised to follow his family’s rule of “never complain, never explain” when dealing with the press.
“The institution made it clear that we didn’t need to know anything about phone hacking, and it was made clear to me that the royal family did not sit in the witness box because doing so could open up a can of worms,” the Duke said in his statement.
However, when discussing phone hacking claims against News Group Newspapers, Harry stated in 2018 that “I became aware that I had a claim that I could bring.”
“The institution was without a doubt withholding information from me about NGN’s phone hacking for a long time,” he added, “and that has only become clear in recent years as I have pursued my own claim with different legal advice and representation.”
“It is not an exaggeration to say that the bubble burst in terms of what I knew in 2020 when I moved out of the United Kingdom,” he says, explaining how he discovered other people within or associated with the royal family had brought phone hacking claims against the press.
“There was never any centralized discussion between us about who had brought claims because each office in the institution is siloed,” he continued.
“There is a common misconception that we are all constantly communicating with one another, but this is not the case.”
Doreen Lawrence, Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, also testified, saying she was “played by a fool” by the Daily Mail and that she thought the publication was “on my son’s side and cared about the fight to bring his killers to justice.”
Doreen is a British Jamaican activist and the mother of Stephen Lawrence, a black British teenager who was murdered in South East London in 1993 in a racist attack.
She went on to say that she considered the journalists she worked with in her fight for justice to be “not only allies, but friends.”
Lady Lawrence claimed that “covert electronic surveillance” was used on her when she met people at a cafe where she would meet people privately. She also claimed that police officers had been bribed.
“We had always suspected that the police were corrupt because of everything that seemed to ensure Stephen’s killers were not found and imprisoned,” Lady Lawrence said.
“I am haunted by the fact that I will never know the truth about what happened to Stephen the night he was killed, or about the failed police investigations into his murder, and now about The Mail’s illegal invasions, spying, and stealing of information about his death and about me,” she added.
Actress Elizabeth Hurley, who is also a claimant in the Associated News lawsuit, explained how the alleged phone hacking occurred.
She claimed that Associated News’ private investigators employed a “former military and British Telecom phone man on full-time payroll.”
“This man would insert cassette recorders into the landline cables of the street’s green BT junction box cabinets.” “He sometimes puts them in manholes,” Ms Hurley explained.
“The cassette recorders were always hidden and carefully and purposefully concealed in order to avoid any sweeps ordered by suspicious victims.”
“Hugh [Grant] and I, like many others, were victims of this, and I remembered the time I asked BT to sweep my lines and they confirmed everything was fine, and I thought my phone was safe and secure to talk on.”
She went on to say that tapes of her conversations were sold for £2,000 in cash “hidden in an envelope.”
The statements come on the second day of the preliminary hearing at the High Court, where Associated News lawyers argued that documents used by lawyers representing Prince Harry and his co-claimants are confidential.
A High Court judge has expressed “concern” about who is in charge of policing confidentiality commitments made during the Leveson Inquiry.
According to Associated Newspapers Limited, a portion of the case brought by seven high-profile individuals is based on documents provided by the company to the Leveson Inquiry in 2011 and 2012 with the understanding that they would be kept confidential.
The company maintains that these documents are subject to binding disclosure and publication restriction orders, as well as undertakings regarding their use, and that the lawyers for those bringing the claim are violating these by relying on them without first requesting their disclosure.
However, Mr Justice Nicklin stated on Tuesday that it is unclear who polices the undertakings now that the Leveson Inquiry has concluded.
