by Prince Harry “deliberately destroyed” potential evidence in his High Court phone hacking claim against the publisher of The Sun, a judge has ordered him to explain.
The Duke of Sussex must personally reveal why and how drafts of his memoir, Spare, and messages exchanged with his ghostwriter were deleted “long after” he sued News Group Newspapers (NGN) in 2019.
Judge Fancourt said he was “concerned” that the documents and conversations, which likely contained references to illegal intelligence gathering, were deleted when the case was already in full swing.
He said that efforts must be made to retrieve the messages sent between the Duke and JR Moehringer, the author.
The judge also ordered the Duke’s legal team to write to Sir Clive Alderton, the King’s private secretary, and Sir Michael Stevens, his treasurer and keeper of the Privy Purse, asking them to hand over all records of communications with the Duke.
It came after Anthony Hudson KC, for NGN, suggested the Duke had “deliberately destroyed” potential evidence.
‘An old hand revealing’
The Duke and more than 40 others are suing NGN for alleged illegal information gathering and invasion of privacy. A trial is scheduled for January 2025.
The publisher has requested the release of emails as well as text messages and WhatsApp messages sent and received by the Duke, as well as content on two encrypted hard drives.
The judge said the lack of documentation handed over by the Duke’s legal team so far was “significant” and a “cause for concern”.
He told the court: “I have also seen disturbing evidence that a large number of potentially relevant documents and confidential messages between the Duke and ghostwriter de Spare were destroyed sometime between 2021 and 2023, well after the t -claim this to be up.
“The position is not very clear about what happened and that must be done through a witness statement from the claimant himself – what happened to the messages between him and his ghostwriter and whether there was any attempt to retrieve them.”
He added: “It seems to me that it is inherently likely that matters related to the parts of Spare that discuss the gathering of information would be unlawful.”
‘Texting around the clock’
The judge also expressed his disbelief that most of the document searches conducted in relation to the case – for possible evidence of prior knowledge of illegal information gathering – were handled by Duke himself in California.
In his own witness statement, Roddy Chisholm Batten, the Duke’s solicitor, claimed he was “an old hand at dealing with exposure” as a result of his hacking claim against Mirror Group Newspapers.
However, the judge said it was “not appropriate in a case of this nature” for the claimant to conduct such a search in person.
“Sometimes, I get the impression that even the claimant’s lawyers don’t seem to address the issue of knowledge … so it wouldn’t be surprising if the claimant themselves didn’t fully understand,” he told the court
The judge also revealed that in 2020 the Royal family gave the Duke “a large body of documents” – a development his own legal team was “not fully aware of” until this month.
In May 2008, Moehringer wrote about the process of writing Duke’s biography for the New Yorker magazine.
“When we weren’t Zooming or calling, we were texting around the clock,” he revealed.
“In good time, nothing was off the table. His kindness made me feel honored, and I could tell he felt surprised. And energy.”
David Sherborne, for the Duke, told the court that the pair had communicated via Signal but their chat history was deleted before the book was published in January 2023.
“I don’t know if your Lordship has ever used Signal, but you can completely destroy it. That’s the benefit of Signal, it’s more secure than WhatsApp,” he said.
“This was a very necessary process, not to hide anything but to delete very sensitive information [the Duke] and the Royal family which, if released, could not only harm his security but also could harm the [Duke] and his children.”
Mr Sherborne said the three Hotmail addresses used by the Duke before 2014; spikewales@hotmail.com; spikewells@hotmail.com and bazasales69@hotmail.com, were no longer accessible.
However, his staff searched for other email accounts that the Duke has access to; namely h@sjpkp.com and ha@sjpkp.com, which will last from January 2014 to April 2024. The original search on three keywords was expanded to 55 search terms, as requested by NGN.
According to court documents, he conducted an “extensive” search of data storage devices, including a physical search of his California home.
He also contacted Lord Christopher Geidt, former private secretary to Elizabeth II, Sally Osman, former director of royal communications, Sir David Manning, former UK ambassador to the US and Nick Loughran, former deputy secretary Duke’s communications, said yes. without holding anything relevant from the time period.
Mr Hudson accused the Duke of “obfuscating” and said that if his former solicitors, or the Royal family, had access, they would be given access to documents.
He accused Duke of “trying to create an obstacle course” to prevent the publisher from obtaining potential evidence and said his legal team had been dragged “kicking and screaming” into a cache of 36,000 emails. may be relevant to search.
In response, Mr Sherborne said it had taken 130 hours to search 35,000 emails and only “a handful” were relevant, describing it as a “completely disproportionate exercise”.
Counsel said the Duke had nothing to hide and accused the NGN of being “in the realms of complete speculation”. He said claims that potential evidence was being withheld were “merely sensational”.
The Duke was ordered to make an interim costs payment of £60,000.
