Prince Harry accused of destroying evidence in phone hacking case

The Duke is alleged to have destroyed evidence, including texts, in his ongoing High Court phone hacking lawsuit.

Prince Harry has been accused of deliberately destroying potential evidence in his High Court phone hacking claim against News Group Newspapers, the publisher of The Sun. 

According to the Daily Express, the publisher is seeking access to Harry's emails, text messages, WhatsApp messages, and two encrypted hard drives. They also want to see communication records between Harry and key figures, including the King's private secretary, Sir Clive Alderton, and Sir Michael Stevens, the privy purse treasurer to the King.

During a court hearing on Thursday, Attorney Anthony Hudson, representing The Sun, claimed that Prince Harry engaged in "shocking" and "extraordinary" obfuscation by allegedly destroying text messages with JR Moehringer, the ghostwriter of Harry's memoir, ‘Spare’. "There ought to be proper evidence about this," Hudson stated in court. "Those messages are clearly within his control, even if they have been deleted."

Prince Harry's lawyer, David Sherborne, dismissed these claims, calling them a "classic fishing expedition." He argued that News Group Newspapers was seeking documents that should have been requested much earlier. "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," Sherborne said in court papers.

Hudson alleged that Harry had created an "obstacle course" to accessing documents from his former lawyers and staff while he was a working royal. "If the claimant wanted his documents from his former solicitors' or from the royal household ... He would have got them," Hudson remarked.

This hearing is the latest in Harry's ongoing legal battles over alleged phone hacking and hiring private investigators to gather information unlawfully. Harry is one of several claimants, including actor Hugh Grant, who allege that News Group journalists violated their privacy between 1994 and 2016. The litigation stems from the phone hacking scandal that erupted at News of the World in 2011. Recently, the judge ruled that Harry could not expand his lawsuit to include allegations against Rupert Murdoch for concealing and destroying evidence of unlawful activity.

In 2011, News Group Newspapers issued an unreserved apology to victims of voicemail interception by News of the World, which subsequently closed. While NGN has settled 1,300 claims related to its newspapers, The Sun has never accepted liability.