Prince Harry stokes political storm by slamming ‘rock bottom’ government

Giving evidence in his ongoing case against the Daily Mirror’s publisher at London’s High Court on Tuesday morning, Prince Harry has slammed the press with a damning witness statement.

In the 55-page long document, available to read in full below, the Duke of Sussex said that the alleged unlawful actions of journalists from The Mirror Group “affected every area of my life”, questioning “How much more blood will stain their typing fingers before someone can put a stop to this madness?”

A sketch of Prince Harry in the witness box at the High Court in London on Tuesday has been released.

Andrew Green KC can be seen cross-examining the Duke of Sussex.

Watch live outside the High Court in London, where Prince Harry is giving evidence slamming the tabloid press.

Prince Harry has claimed that the UK government is at “rock bottom” in an extraordinary intervention into politics during his High Court case against a newspaper.

The Duke of Sussex used a witness statement in the case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) over alleged phone hacking to lash out at the standard of government.

Harry blamed the tabloids for “inciting hatred and harassment” in his private life – claiming he was cast as a “playboy prince” and a “thicko” when he was younger.

Accusing the government of being too “scared” of the press, he said: “Our country is judged globally by the state of our press and our government – both of which I believe are at rock bottom.”

In his witness statement, the Duke of Sussex described a 2007 story in The People about his then-girlfriend Chelsy Davy’s fears for his safety over his proposed military deployment to Iraq as “so violating”.

He said he believed journalists had listened to his and Miss Davy’s private messages, saying: “This article once more shows it’s not my career and professional life that the defendant’s journalists were interested in, but very private, raw emotions between me and my partner.

“It’s so violating.”

As the judge returned to court after a short break, the duke’s barrister David Sherborne said he’d been asked on behalf of a number of people in court and watching proceedings remotely if Harry could “raise his voice”.

Harry then laughed as Andrew Green KC, for MGN, joked: “I hope not raise it in anger.”

The Duke of Sussex promised his then-girlfriend Chelsy Davy in 2006 that he was not given a lap dance at the Spearmint Rhino club, he said in his witness statement.

Referring to a story in The People in April 2006 which said Miss Davy had gone “berserk” and slammed the phone down on Harry over the night out, the duke said: “I don’t think Chelsy did go mad about me going there.

“We did speak about it over the phone, but I promised her that I hadn’t had a lap dance and stayed with the three other cadets that had girlfriends.”

The duke said he believed journalists had access to one of their phone records and “put two and two together to make a story”.

The Duke of Sussex has said he now sees “how much of my life was wasted on this paranoia” which he attributes to the actions of MGN.

Harry said in his witness statement that articles which claimed to have comments from people close to him “contributed to the general feeling of paranoia that I was so used to living with, a feeling of not being able to trust anybody”.

He continued: “It’s bad enough at any age, but looking back, 18 years old is so young to feel constantly suspicious of everyone around you.”

The duke added that at different points he “doubted the loyalty” of people around him including his former nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke and former royal equerry Mark Dyer.

He continued: “It’s only now, realising what the defendant’s journalists were doing and how they were getting their information, that I can see how much of my life was wasted on this paranoia.

“I’ve always heard people refer to my mother as paranoid, but she wasn’t.

“She was fearful of what was actually happening to her and now I know that I was the same.”

Mr Green questioned the duke about a Daily Mirror article publisher in September 1996 entitled “Diana so sad on Harry’s big day”.

The court heard that Harry has complained about the article containing details of his feelings regarding the divorce of his parents and the ill health of a family friend.

The MGN barrister said the duke was first issued with a mobile phone when he went to Eton in 1998, putting it to Harry that the 1996 article could not have involved phone hacking.

Harry replied: “That’s incorrect. My security at school had a separate room with a land line.”

He said “most Sunday nights”, after being dropped off by his mother “the first thing we would do is to use the phone to ring her… in floods of tears”.

Harry also said it could have been his mother who was hacked, but Mr Green replied “that’s just speculation you’ve come up with now”.

Mr Green said the article reported that Harry at the time was “believed to be taking the royal divorce badly”, with the duke replying: “Like most children I think, yes”.

The barrister said such information was not saying anything that was not “pretty obvious”.

The duke said there was “no legitimacy” in putting such information in the newspaper, adding that “the methods in which it was obtained seem incredibly suspicious”.

The Duke of Sussex faced questions from Mr Green about claims in his witness statement that MGN’s alleged intrusion into his life contributed to “a huge amount of paranoia”.

Mr Green asked Harry how he had such feelings if he was not aware of articles published in relation to him at the time.

The Duke said he would be “speculating” if he said which articles he had read and which he had not.

Harry added: “In my experience, the vast majority of the quotes were attributed to a pal, a friend, a source, an onlooker, which actually creates more suspicion”.

The duke said he started to re-examine articles when he “realised information had been unlawfully obtained”.