Janice R. Andrews
LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry has been instructed to explain the destruction of his correspondence with J.R. Moehringer, the ghostwriter of his memoir. Judge Timothy Fancourt issued this direction after expressing concern about the lack of these important communications. The incident started when Harry filed a lawsuit against The Sun, claiming that the tabloid had invaded his privacy by breaking the law.
At the heart of the dispute are missing emails and drafts about Harry’s best-selling autobiography, “Spare.” The Sun’s attorney, Anthony Hudson, chastised Harry for setting up an “obstacle course” in the release of crucial papers for the legal dispute, saying that “we’ve had to drag those out of the claimant kicking and screaming.”
The publisher of The Sun, News Group Newspapers, won a £132,000 ($167,000) legal costs award from the High Court. This decision was taken in response to a request for more thorough searches of Harry’s laptop and any pertinent conversations and text messages on Signal and WhatsApp that would help them in their defense.
David Sherborne, Harry’s lawyer, said that News Group was on a “classic fishing expedition” and that the records ought to have been requested sooner to get ready for the January trial. Sherborne contended, “The purposefully dramatic argument that the claimant (Harry) has not adequately completed the disclosure procedure is completely undermined by NGN’s tactical and slow approach to disclosure. This is not accurate. Indeed, the claimant has explicitly stated that he has gone above and beyond his call of duty by conducting in-depth searches.
Judge Fancourt dismissed Harry’s phone hacking claims last year, saying he had waited too long to initiate the case, giving The Sun a partial victory. The judge decided that Harry might have brought the claim within the six-year statute of limitations and that he should have known about the controversy involving the News of the World.
The Sun is now looking for conversations that might show Harry was aware of the publications’ purportedly unlawful information-gathering practices before 2013, in an attempt to utilize the statute of limitations defense at trial. This is significant because, six years after the purported knowledge, Harry filed his claim in 2019.
Judge Fancourt hinted that correspondence from years past, including those that preceded the 2023 release of “Spare,” might show that Harry was aware of illegal information-gathering techniques years prior. As a result, he has mandated that Harry, who was not in court, provide a witness statement detailing the outcome of his correspondence with Moehringer.
Sherborne retorted that Harry never discussed illegal information collected via SMS or chat apps. Fancourt, citing Moehringer’s New Yorker piece in which it was said that he and Harry were “texting around the clock,” pointed out a possible inconsistency.
Judge Fancourt recently denied Harry’s request to include claims in his complaint that Rupert Murdoch, the former head of the business that owned News Group, was complicit in hiding and deleting evidence of illegal activity.
This most recent revelation raises important concerns regarding privacy, legal processes, and media ethics while adding another dimension to Prince Harry’s ongoing conflict with the British tabloid press. Both the general public and legal professionals will be keenly following this case to see how Prince Harry reacts to the judge’s ruling and what it may mean for his continued struggle for justice.
