UK royal Prince Harry has launched a ferocious courtroom attack on the country's newspaper industry and democratic government as he gave evidence against a tabloid publisher whose titles he accuses of unlawful activities.

Harry is the most notable of around 100 actors, sports stars, celebrities and others suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) at London's High Court. MGN, which publishes the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, is accused of widespread unlawful information gathering between 1991 and 2011.

Harry called the UK press "vile," asking the court: "How much more blood will stain their typing fingers before someone can put a stop to this madness?"

Questioned about to whom he was referring, he said: "Some of the editors and journalists that are responsible for causing a lot of pain, upset and in some cases - perhaps inadvertently - death."

Fifth-in-line to the throne, Harry stepped down from royal duties in 2020. In one jaw-dropping response, he attacked the UK government, despite the royal family's stance on remaining politically neutral. 

He told the court:  "On a national level as, at the moment, our country is judged globally by the state of our press and our Government, both of which I believe are at rock bottom.

"Democracy fails when your press fails to scrutinize and hold the Government accountable, and instead choose to get into bed with them so they can ensure the status quo."

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Harry also talked of his late mother Princess Diana, who died in 1997 after the car in which she was being driven crashed in Paris while being pursued by paparazzi photographers.

"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," he said in his 50-page written witness statement.

Targeted since school

In the statement  and during hours of cross-examination from MGN's lawyer Andrew Green, the younger son of King Charles said he had been targeted by the UK press since his schooldays. He said 140 stories which appeared in MGN papers resulted from phone-hacking or other unlawful behavior, although the trial is only considering 33 of these.

Green apologized to Harry on MGN's behalf over one instance in which it admitted unlawful information gathering, saying "it should never have happened and it will not happen again."

The lawyer then forensically quizzed the prince over the articles and questioned whether the source of his distress was caused by press coverage in general. Green suggested the specific MGN stories were based on information already in the public domain.

MGN, now owned by Reach, has previously admitted its titles were involved in phone-hacking, settling more than 600 claims.

 

Rare royal court appearance

The case is one of four that Harry is pursuing at the High Court against British newspapers. He is also suing News Group Newspapers (NGN) and Associated Newspapers (ANL) over phone hacking and illicit privacy breaches. Both deny unlawful activity.

Harry is the first British royal to appear in the witness box since the 1890s when Edward VII testified as a witness in a slander trial over a card game.

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