In his effort to seek judicial compensation from the publisher of British newspaper The Sun for phone hacking and other illegal activities, Prince Harry ended up in hot water with the High Court Judge, as he is accused by opposing lawyers of ‘deliberately destroying’ potential evidence that would be relevant for the case.
So, now, the outcast Royal has been ordered by the judge to write to the court and ‘transparently’ explain himself.
Daily Mail reported:
“Mr. Justice Fancourt said it was ‘troubling’ that a large number of messages between the Duke and the ghostwriter of his memoir, Spare, had been wiped ‘well after’ he launched phone hacking claims against the publisher of the red-top tabloid.”
The judge ordered Harry to ‘write a statement to make transparently clear what had happened’.
The Duke and 40 others are suing The Sun’s publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN), and the trial scheduled to start in January 2025.
“In a preliminary hearing on Thursday, NGN asked the judge to order Harry’s side hand over a trove of documents which might contain evidence relevant to the case. Among them were messages exchanged between the Duke and JR Moehringer who ghost-wrote Spare, published in January 2023.”
This ghostwriter, it bears mentioning, is the one that revealed on the record the existence of two ‘racist royals’ – later revealed to be King Charles and Princess Kate Middleton – who were worried about ‘how dark’ the skin of Harry and Meghan’s son Archie would be.
Writer Moehringer also revealed that he and Harry had been ‘texting around the clock’ and that ‘no subject was off the table’.
In this sense, Justice Fancourt stated that it was ‘inherently likely’ that ‘matters would have been said’ by the pair that could be relevant to the case.
But it seems that the messages exchanged on the Signal messaging app have been deleted.
“The judge said: ‘I have seen troubling evidence that a large number of potentially relevant documents and confidential messages between the duke and the ghost writer of Spare were destroyed some time between 2021 and 2023, well after this claim was under way. The position is not transparently clear about what happened, and needs to be made so by way of a witness statement from the claimant himself’.”
Defense barrister for NGN, Anthony Hudson characterized it as ‘another example of the obfuscation in relation the claimant’s case’.
“Harry’s barrister David Sherborne confirmed the ‘entire chat history was wiped’ but said: ‘This was a highly necessary process, not to hide anything but to delete highly sensitive information about [Harry] and the royal family which, if leaked, would not only compromise his security but also be potentially damaging to the [duke] and his family’.”
The judge criticized the ‘paucity’ of the discovery documents Harry has so far handed over to the newspaper to help prepare for the trial.
The judge ordered a search of Harry’s text and WhatsApp messages for anything relevant.
He also ruled that ‘efforts should be made’ to retrieve the deleted Signal messages with the ghost writer.
“Meanwhile two of King Charles’s closest aides are being dragged into the saga. The judge ordered Harry’s solicitors to write to His Majesty’s private secretary Sir Clive Alderton and Sir Michael Stevens, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, asking them to disclose any correspondence with the duke.”
Meanwhile, in another report, it arises that Harry is ‘confused’ as to why he and and his wife, Meghan Markle, have been so terminally cut off by the royal family.
It does seem odd, since his memoire ‘Spare’ shaded the current Queen Camilla, and his ghost writer later accused the King and the Princess of Wales of being racists.
But a source is claiming that after Harry wasn’t invited to the Trooping the Colour ceremony earlier this month, he has had the sudden realization that he’s ‘a proper outsider’.
New York Post reported:
“’He’s heartbroken and confused by the way they’ve cut him off and seemingly haven’t given it another thought’, a royal insider told Closer magazine. ‘Harry was very upset and emotional when he saw the footage of Kate [Middleton] at Trooping the Colour’.”
The source claims he ‘would have dearly loved’ to have been there, to ‘support Kate in person’ on her first public appearance during her battle with cancer.
“’The fact he’s got to watch on TV or via the internet from 6,000 miles away just made him so sad. It really hammers home how he’s a proper outsider at this point’, the source said. ‘He’s incredibly proud of her and encouraged that she obviously has very good doctors and appeared to be healthy and in good spirits’.”
The source talks of his wish to ‘bond with his beloved sister-in-law in person’, and that not being able to do so is ‘a kick in the guts’, and something difficult to live with.
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