Prince Harry has been hit with a hefty legal bill and ordered to explain how communications with the ghostwriter of his memoir were destroyed.
It comes after an attorney for UK tabloid The Sun, accused him of engaging in “shocking” obfuscation in his lawsuit claiming the newspaper violated his privacy by unlawfully snooping on him.
On Thursday, local time, Justice Timothy Fancourt said it was troubling that all communications between the Duke of Sussex and writer JR Moehringer, along with all drafts of the best-selling book Spare, were destroyed.
Attorney Anthony Hudson said at the High Court the prince had created an “obstacle course” to providing documents that should be disclosed in litigation and that “we’ve had to drag those out of the claimant kicking and screaming”.
News Group Newspapers, (NGN) publisher of The Sun, was awarded 132,000 British pounds ($250,993) in legal costs for largely prevailing in a request to have more searches undertaken for data on Harry’s laptop and any text messages and chats on WhatsApp and Signal that could be helpful to the defence.
Prince Harry’s lawyer said NGN was engaging in a “classic fishing expedition” for documents it should have sought sooner for a trial scheduled in January.
“NGN’s tactical and sluggish approach to disclosure wholly undermines the deliberately sensational assertion that the claimant [Harry] has not properly carried out the disclosure exercise,” attorney David Sherborne said in court papers.
“This is untrue. In fact, the claimant has already made clear that he has conducted extensive searches, going above and beyond his obligations.”
The hearing is the latest in Harry’s battles against Britain’s biggest tabloids over allegations they hacked his phone and hired private investigators who used unlawful measures to dig up dirt on him.
Prince Harry is one of dozens of claimants, including actor Hugh Grant, alleging that between 1994 and 2016, News Group journalists and investigators they hired violated their privacy by intercepting voicemails, tapping phones, bugging cars and using deception to access confidential information.
The litigation grew out of a phone hacking scandal that erupted in 2011 at NGN’s News of the World, which closed its doors as a result.
NGN issued an unreserved apology to victims of voicemail interception by the News of the World. NGN said it had settled 1,300 claims for its newspapers, though The Sun never accepted liability.
The Sun won a partial victory last year when Fancourt tossed out Prince Harry’s phone hacking allegations because he waited too long to bring the case.
He ruled the prince should have been aware of the scandal that engulfed the News of the World and, therefore, could have brought the lawsuit within the six-year time limitation.
The newspaper wants to use the time limitation defence at trial and is seeking communications that could show Prince Harry was aware of allegations newspapers employed other illegal methods of unearthing information before 2013 — six years before he sued in 2019.
Justice Fancourt said older communications and even ones up to the 2023 publication of his memoir could provide evidence that he was aware of the unlawful information gathering years earlier.
He ordered Prince Harry, who was not in court, to provide a witness statement explaining what happened to communications with Mr Moehringer.
Mr Sherborne said the prince had not used text or messaging apps to discuss unlawful information gathering.
But Justice Fancourt said that might be contradicted because Mr Moehringer wrote in a New Yorker article that he and Harry were “texting around the clock.”
Justice Fancourt recently ruled Prince Harry could not expand his lawsuit to add allegations that Rupert Murdoch, who was chief executive of the company that controlled MGN, was part of an effort to conceal and destroy evidence of unlawful activity.
AP