Prince Harry was criticized by a lawyer for The sunwho accused the Duke of Sussex of “deliberately” destroying possible evidence amid his lawsuit against the British tabloid, according to multiple reports.
On Thursday, lawyer Anthony Hudson claimed in court that Prince Harry destroyed messages exchanged with the ghostwriter of his 2023 memoir, SaveO Associated Press reported. Harry and other claimants are set to go to trial with News Group Newspapersthe publisher of The sunin January 2025, over allegations of illegal information collection.
According to The telegraphNGN sought Harry’s emails, text messages and WhatsApp messages, among other content and communications, including his messages with his ghostwriter, JR Moehringer. However, The telegraph reported, citing Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne, that Harry communicated with Moehringer via the Signal app and that his chat history was removed before the publication of the memoir to delete confidential information that could compromise Harry’s safety and be harmful if leaked.
Sherborne accused NGN of going on a “fishing expedition” and said the royal went “beyond the call of duty”.
“NGN’s tactical and slow approach to disclosure completely undermines the deliberately sensationalist claim that the complainant (Harry) failed to adequately undertake the disclosure exercise,” he said in court documents, according to the AP. “This is not true. In fact, the complainant has already made clear that he conducted extensive searches, going beyond his duties.”
However, Hudson claimed Harry was “trying to create an obstacle course” to prevent NGN from obtaining potential evidence. While he said the royal’s legal team was dragged “kicking and screaming” into searching through more than 30,000 emails, according to The telegraph, Sherborne called the email search a “wholly disproportionate exercise” as it took more than 100 hours of searching to uncover what appeared to be only a “handful” of emails that were relevant.
Hudson reportedly said in court: “These messages are clearly within your control, even though they have been deleted. This is why we say that searching for texts and WhatsApps is important.”
Hudson continued: “It is, I’m afraid we say, another example of obfuscation in relation to the complainant’s case. We say it is shocking and extraordinary that the complainant should have deliberately destroyed…”
“Well, we don’t know what happened,” Judge Timothy Fancourt interrupted. “It’s not clear at all.”
Fancourt reportedly said Harry needs to make a witness statement.
“I have also seen worrying evidence that a large number of potentially relevant documents and confidential messages between the Duke and the ghostwriter of Save were destroyed sometime between 2021 and 2023, well after this claim was initiated,” he told the court, The telegraph.
“The position is not transparently clear about what happened and needs to be made through a statement from the complainant himself – what happened to the messages between him and his ghostwriter and whether any attempt was made to retrieve them,” Fancourt continued.
The judge added: “It seems to me inherently likely that issues relating to the parties to the Save in which the illegal collection of information is discussed.”
ET contacted Prince Harry’s lawyers and The sun to comment.
The legal update comes amid a new announcement that Harry is is set to be honored with the Pat Tillman Award at the 2024 ESPY Awards on July 11, although it has not been announced whether the royal will accept the award in person in Los Angeles.
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