Background: Newspaper went to the grave
In July 2011, the major British newspaper News of the World was shut down entirely, following scandalous revelations about how its employees had tapped scores of phones in search of revelations.
Reporters in the British tabloid press had set up systems to get into and listen to various people’s voicemail boxes. Politicians, celebrities and crime victims alike were exposed to this. The News of the World reported, among other things, on an injury for which Prince William received treatment, which they had only been able to learn about in this way.
The paper was later revealed to have wiretapped crime victims such as a murdered 13-year-old girl, as well as relatives of fallen British soldiers and victims of the 2005 London Underground bombings.
In 2007, the newspaper’s editor who covered the royal family and one of its private detectives were sentenced to prison for working in this way. From the management it was long said to be the overstepping of individual employees, but in 2011 the newspaper’s owner, the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, was forced to admit the extent. After a great uproar, a decision was made to close down.
Several employees were put on trial and several were convicted.
The News of the World was founded in 1843 and is read by millions of people every week. The newspaper was owned by Rupert Murdoch’s large company News Group Newspapers, which today owns, among others, The Times and The Sun.
Sources: BBC, Encyclopedia Britannica
The 38-year-old prince will testify in the High Court in London on Tuesday, against the media group Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which runs several of Britain’s largest newspapers such as The Daily Mirror and The Sunday People.
The court case is one of several ongoing in a larger settlement between the more outspoken Prince Harry in recent years and the British media, which he accuses partly of having destroyed parts of his life, partly of causing major problems for the country as a whole.
According to Harry, the media is partly responsible for the death of his mother Princess Diana, and partly for soured relations within the royal family. He and wife Meghan have moved to the United States.
— If they (the media) want to hold us and the rich and powerful accountable, and if they want to scrutinize society, then who is scrutinizing them? It’s something that me and (Crown Prince) William have talked about for many years, Prince Harry told ITV in January, on the occasion of the release of his acclaimed autobiography The Other.
Doubted friends
Above all, the prince wants to lead in evidence that a long series of newspaper articles have been written based on information that the media have come across illegally, mainly through wiretapping.
The revelations that were published caused the prince to doubt whether he could trust his loved ones, according to the legal documents that have been filed. It describes how his circle of friends dwindled and how he went through heavy periods of “depression and paranoia”. Girlfriends, but also their families, are said to have been “drawn into the chaos”.
According to the charges, he later learned that his phone had been tapped and that newspapers had hired private investigators to follow him around the world.
In one case Harry recounts in his book, he says he was the victim of a blackmail attempt by a newspaper editor who claimed to have pictures of him snorting cocaine. According to the prince, this was a hoax that he called.
Media wait outside the High Court in London, where Prince Harry will testify.Suicide mission?
The MGN Group denies the allegations. They have formally apologized for an incident when a private detective was hired to unravel events during one of the prince’s nights out. But the article, published in 2004 with the headline “Sex on the beach with Harry”, is not one of the 33 articles that have been included in the lawsuit.
In the ITV interview in January, Prince Harry said his father, King Charles III, had warned him that taking on the British media was a “suicide mission”. Journalist Tom Bradby states that the prince would owe the media an apology if what he says cannot be proven.
— If it can’t, if I’m wrong, they would probably sue us, answered the prince.
MGN claims to have paid more than the equivalent of one billion kroner in legal settlements and in 2015 had an apology printed to victims of wiretapping.
With Elton John
In this legal case, Prince Harry stands together with three other people, including two actors from the popular TV soap “Coronation street”, as plaintiffs.
The prince is trying to take two more wiretapping cases to court. In one, against Daily Mail owner Associated Newspapers, he is on the accusing side alongside, among others, the artist Elton John. In the second, the accusations are directed against Rupert Murdoch-owned News Group Newspapers, which runs, among other things, The Sun.
In these cases, no review decision has yet been announced.
Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have been the subject of extensive media coverage in recent years. Much is pure drivel, according to them. Here, a TV journalist holds up The Sun and a Daily Mail, both adorned by Meghan, outside Buckingham Palace. Archive image.