Prince Harry to explain missing messages from his memoir

A London judge ordered Prince Harry to explain how the messages between the royal and the ghostwriter in his memoirs Spare disappeared.

At a hearing in Prince Harry's illegal newsgathering lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid publisher News Group Newspapers (NGN) on Thursday, the court heard that requests for messages from Harry and the author, JR Moehringer, could not be satisfied.

Judge Timothy Fancourt, who presided over the case, said: The temperaturethat “a large number of potentially relevant documents” and messages between Harry and Moehringer “were destroyed between 2021 and 2023.”

“The position is not clearly clear as to what exactly happened and needs to be confirmed by a witness statement from the applicant himself explaining what happened,” he said.

The prince's lawyer, David Sherborne, had told the court that his client and the author had not discussed illegal collection of information in the messages and that their exchanges had been carried out using the messaging application Signal which had since “erased” them from the platform.

News week has reached out to Prince Harry's representatives via email for comment.

NGN had sought the messages as part of a sweeping disclosure request to the prince's legal team, which also included thousands of emails, WhatsApp messages and text messages between royal and palace aides.

Harry alleges that the NGN securities, which include The sun newspaper and disappeared World Newsengaged in illegal activities to obtain information about his private life, which was published between the 1990s and 2010.

The publisher has previously denied any illegal activity on The sunand sought to have the prince's applications rejected, as they were filed too late.

In Britain, a claimant has six years from becoming aware that they may have been the victim of illegal information collection until they take legal action. Harry filed his suit in 2019, with his legal team arguing that he had not been aware of the potential claim until 2013, putting him within the six-year time limit and him allowed to continue.

NGN's legal team is seeking to identify evidence showing that the prince had sufficient knowledge that he may have been a victim of the alleged illegal activity before the 2013 date, which could potentially result in his case being dismissed.

The publisher's lawyers had previously successfully argued that Harry knew he could have filed a wiretapping complaint against the publisher before 2013, but that complaint was thrown out by a judge last year. He was, however, allowed to proceed with his trial claiming that he had been the victim of blagging and other illegal information-gathering techniques.

NGN had asked Harry to contact his ghostwriter to see if he had discussed with the author his potential knowledge of illegal information gathering and his media prosecution.

On Thursday, NGN's lawyers accused Harry of “obscuring” and attempting to “create an obstacle course” to prevent them from obtaining potentially relevant evidence, despite the royal apparently providing more than 11,000 documents and conducted a personal search for material at his home in California, and also contacted senior members of the royal family to inquire about potential information they might hold.

Anthony Hudson KC, acting for NGN, suggested the prince had “deliberately destroyed” evidence, according to The telegraph. Fancourt, however, responded by saying: “We don’t know what happened. It's not at all clear. »

Fancourt raised concerns about how Harry's legal team handled the disclosure request, saying it was “not appropriate” for the prince to conduct research himself and ruled that a wider search for evidence should take place.

He also ordered the prince to pay an interim payment of £60,000 ($76,000) towards NGN's legal costs.

Harry's case is expected to go to trial in early 2025.

James Crawford-Smith is NewsweekThe royal reporter for , based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on NewsweekThe Royals Facebook page.

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