The Duke of Sussex has revealed he was introduced to privacy and defamation scholar David Sherborne by Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish. This introduction took place during a vacation that Prince Harry and Meghan had enjoyed with the couple in France.
When asked when he first approached lawyers about a claim against the publisher, Prince Harry suggested it was in fact Mr Sherborne’s idea. “I didn’t go to see them. I ran into Mr. Sherborne in France,” he said, referring to his memoir.
In his memoir, Prince Harry revealed he and Meghan felt confident and brave after a highly successful tour of South Africa in September 2019. They chose this moment to announce they were suing three UK tabloids over their conduct shame and their long-standing use of the telephone. piracy.
Prince Harry, 38, is suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) for damages, alleging journalists under his titles, which include the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, have been involved in methods such as phone hacking, blogging (obtaining information by deception) and the use of private investigators for illegal activities.
He said Elton John and David played a role in introducing him to a lawyer familiar with the phone-hacking scandal.
This acquaintance of theirs shared his expertise and evidence in court with Prince Harry, offering a solution to the roadblocks they faced from the palace. The solution was elegantly simple: hire your own lawyer.
In his book, the Duke mentioned that the idea of hiring his own lawyer never occurred to him. However, Mr Sherborne was duly hired and outside the High Court on Wednesday solicitor Andrew Green KC sought to determine how the claim materialized. Before meeting Mr Sherborne in France, Prince Harry had not sought legal advice regarding a potential claim against Mirror Group. When asked, he replied, “No, nothing at all.”
Prince Harry admitted that he had not considered legal action before this meeting since he had never been presented with any evidence. He explained that all the evidence had been contained in the palace and that he would never have been allowed to press charges. Mr Sherborne’s client list includes the late Diana, Princess of Wales, actor Michael Douglas, former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Colleen Rooney at the Wagatha Christie trial.
Sir Elton John settled a phone hacking claim against News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, in 2019. He is now part of a joint complaint by Prince Harry and others, all represented by Mr Sherborne, over an alleged unlawful collection of information at Associated. Limited logs. The publisher vehemently denies these claims.
In court, Mr Green asked the Duke if he would feel relieved or disappointed if it turned out he had never been hacked by a Mirror Group reporter. Prince Harry replied: “I’m not quite sure I believe the phone hacking was on an industrial scale in the three newspapers at the time, and there’s no doubt about that.” He added: “To have a decision against me and one of the other people, given that Mirror Group agreed to the hack, yes, I would feel some injustice if it was not accepted.”
