Harry, 41, in court on the third day of the highly anticipated nine-week trial, stepped back from royal duties in 2020 and relocated eventually to California with Meghan amid a bitter family rift.<\/p>\n
But the couple, who have two children, have long complained about media intrusion and Meghan\u2019s treatment by Britain\u2019s newspapers after years of negative stories about her.<\/p>\n
\u2018Mission\u2019 <\/p>\n
King Charles III\u2019s younger son has also blamed the media for the death of his mother Princess Diana, killed in a Paris car crash in 1997 while trying to shake off paparazzi.<\/p>\n
The ANL joint lawsuit is the third and final case brought against a British newspaper publisher by Harry, who has called it his \u201cmission\u201d to take on the tabloids \u201cfor the greater good\u201d.<\/p>\n
He made history in 2023 by becoming the first senior British royal to enter the witness box in more than a century, when he testified in his successful hacking claim against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).<\/p>\n
Last year, on the eve of another scheduled trial, Rupert Murdoch\u2019s UK tabloid publisher agreed to pay him \u201csubstantial damages\u201d for privacy breaches, including phone hacking.<\/p>\n
Six other high-profile figures \u2013 including actors Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost \u2013 have joined Harry in suing ANL, accusing the publisher of illegally intercepting voicemail messages, listening in on phone calls and deceptively obtaining private information.<\/p>\n
They allege it paid private investigators implicated in other phone-hacking lawsuits for some of the unlawful information used to generate dozens of stories.<\/p>\n
The accusations cover a period from at least 1993 to 2018 in some instances.<\/p>\n
ANL has consistently denied the claims, calling them \u201clurid\u201d and \u201cpreposterous\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018Greed\u2019 <\/p>\n
Dressed in a dark suit and striped tie, Harry took the stand, swearing an oath on the Bible before facing questions from ANL\u2019s legal team.<\/p>\n
He insisted in a witness statement unveiled that the trial was not \u201cnot just about me\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is obviously a personal element to bringing this claim, motivated by truth, justice and accountability, but it is not just about me,\u201d he said in the statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is also a social element concerning all the thousands of people whose lives were invaded because of greed,\u201d the prince argued.<\/p>\n
He described press coverage of his ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy as like \u201cfull blown stalking\u201d, while noting suspicion that people close to him were leaking stories to the press created an atmosphere of \u201cdistrust\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis sort of intrusion was terrifying for Chelsy,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
While on the stand, Harry described the tabloid\u2019s coverage as \u201ca recurring traumatic experience\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never believed that my life is open season to be commercialised by these people,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The seven claimants\u2019 legal team opened the trial Monday by vowing to show \u201cthere was clear and systematic use of unlawful gathering of information\u201d at ANL.<\/p>\n
But ANL\u2019s lead lawyer has countered that evidence will prove it sourced its stories legitimately and that claims around the use of private investigators were \u201cclutching at straws in the wind\u201d.<\/p>\n
– Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harry, 41, in court on the third day of the highly anticipated nine-week trial, stepped back from royal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12617,123609,23545,26952,1349,16719,156,71946,9859,2959,424,6431,1446,143303,123763,111,35966,139,69,1118,4940,26268,143301,143304,2846,1842,143302],"class_list":{"0":"post-244940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-absolute","9":"tag-accuses","10":"tag-accusing","11":"tag-blasted","12":"tag-court","13":"tag-emotional","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-finished","16":"tag-harry","17":"tag-high","18":"tag-life","19":"tag-londons","20":"tag-making","21":"tag-meghans","22":"tag-misery","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-newspapers","25":"tag-newzealand","26":"tag-nz","27":"tag-of","28":"tag-prince","29":"tag-publisher","30":"tag-tabloids","31":"tag-testifying","32":"tag-them","33":"tag-wife","34":"tag-wifes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}