Prince Harry accuses Piers Morgan of ‘personal attacks and intimidation’

Prince Harry today attacked Piers Morgan and accused him of ‘horrific personal attacks’. 

The Duke, 38, alleged that Mr Morgan, the former editor of the Daily Mirror, had been intimidating him and his wife since he launched legal proceedings against the publisher of the Mirror newspaper over hacking claims. 

The journalist left Good Morning Britain in 2021 after saying he did not believe claims made by the Duchess of Sussex during her and Harry’s explosive Oprah Winfrey interview.

Harry said in his statement to the High Court: ‘Unfortunately, as a consequence of me bringing my Mirror Group claim, both myself and my wife have been subjected to a barrage of horrific personal attacks and intimidation from Piers Morgan, who was the editor of the Daily Mirror between 1995 and 2004, presumably in retaliation and in the hope that I will back down, before being able to hold him properly accountable for his unlawful activity towards both me and my mother during his editorship.’

Harry on Piers Morgan

Harry is suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) for damages, claiming journalists at its titles, which also include the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, were linked to methods including phone hacking, so-called ‘blagging’ or gaining information by deception, and use of private investigators for unlawful activities.

He alleges that about 140 articles published between 1996 and 2010 contained information gathered using unlawful methods, and 33 of these have been selected to be considered at the trial.

MGN is contesting the claims and has either denied or not admitted each of them.

Harry was accused of being ‘in the realms of total speculation’ during a cross-examination today at the hands of Andrew Green, KC for Mirror Group Newspapers. 

Mr Green told him at one point: ‘That’s not an answer’.

‘Are we not, Prince Harry, in the realms of total speculation?’, Mr Green said shortly afterwards when the King’s youngest son said he was ‘not sure’ whose phone was hacked when he broke his thumb playing football at Eton and it appeared in the press.

The journalist left Good Morning Britain in 2021 after saying he did not believe claims made by the Duchess of Sussex (pictured) during her and Harry’s explosive Oprah Winfrey interview

The barrister also repeatedly told the court that information in stories that Harry claims contained details from hacked voicemails or gathered by illegal means, actually came from other media outlets, including the BBC, as well as press releases, palace statements and even public comments made by his mother Princess Diana.

Harry later suggested that King Charles may have had his voicemails intercepted when questioned on a Mirror article titled ‘Harry’s cocaine, ecstasy and GHB parties’, which claimed his father was ‘worried sick’ about his son.

The royal was then asked about whether his own drug use, an illegal act, was in the public interest when as a teenager he was then third in line to the throne.

He is now fifth in line. Suggesting he believed it was not, he said: ‘There’s a difference between public interest – and what interests the public’.

It came after the Duke of Sussex launched an extraordinary attack on the Government – branding it ‘rock bottom’ – and addressed rumours that Princess Diana’s lover James Hewitt was his father.