Prince Harry accuses royal family of conditioning
Prince Harry has revealed new detail into his experience with royal life while giving testimony in a surprise court appearance at London’s High Court.
Harry was there for the second day of a preliminary hearing along with other high-profile individuals - who were alleged victims of phone hacking, privacy breaches, and the misuse of their private information - as they sought to sue Associated Newspapers Ltd [ANL].
However, ANL want to discuss the claims without trial, having described them to be “preposterous smears.”
And during his witness statement, the Duke of Sussex has taken aim at the royal family over where the blame lies for taking legal action against ANL, explaining that he has had “an uneasy relationship with the press” in the years after his mother Diana’s death. He went on to add that it was policy to “never complain, [and] never explain”, and this was exactly what he’d been taught.
“Following the death of my mother in 1997 when I was 12 years old and her treatment at the hands of the press, I have always had an uneasy relationship with the press,” his witness statement read.
“However, as a member of the Institution the policy was to ‘never complain, never explain.’
“There was no alternative; I was conditioned to accept it. For the most part, I accepted the interest in my performing [of] my public functions.”
According to Harry, the difficulties intensified when he began his relationship with now-wife Meghan Markle. The 38-year-old prince’s concerns over his family’s lack of action only grew, with Harry even telling the court he became “increasingly troubled by the approach of not taking action against the press in the wake of persistent attacks on, harassment of and intrusive, sometimes racist articles concerning Meghan.”
He then explained that things had only gotten worse when the couple were expecting their first child, Prince Archie.
And when it came to the News of the World phone hacking scandal, Harry claimed he was never so much as invited to a royal meeting.
The Institution, he said, had “without a doubt [been] withholding information”, while making it “clear that we did not need to know anything about phone hacking”. He added that it had become clear to him that “the royal family did not sit in the witness box because that could open up a can of worms”, and that through pursuing his own legal advice, the “bubble had burst in terms of what I knew in 2020 when I moved out of the United Kingdom.”
“There is this misconception,” he noted, “that we are all in constant communication with one another.
“But that is not true.”
As for why Harry was bringing his claims forward - including those that ANL even hired a private investigator to hack his friends’ phones and dig up information on his then-partner - he said that it was out of love for his country, and his mounting concerns over “the unchecked power, influence and criminality of Associated.
“The evidence I have seen shows that Associated’s journalists are criminals with journalistic powers which should concern every single one of us.
“The British public deserve to know the full extent of this cover up and I feel it is my duty to expose it.”
Images: Getty