Prince Harry was ordered this Thursday (27) to carry out wider searches for emails, text messages and other materials that may be relevant in his case against Rupert Murdoch’s British journalistic arm, amid concerns that some evidence has been destroyed.
Harry, 39, youngest son of King Charles, and more than 40 other people are suing News Group Newspapers (NGN) over allegations of illegal activity by journalists and private investigators, for the Sun and the now-defunct “News of the World”, from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s.
A trial focusing on some of these allegations, possibly including Harry’s, is expected to begin at London’s High Court in January next year.
The NGN, which is contesting the claims, has paid hundreds of millions of pounds to victims of phone hacking by the News of the World and settled more than 1,300 cases, but has always rejected allegations of any wrongdoing by NGN staff. “The Sun”.
Ahead of the trial, NGN’s legal team sought an order to force Harry to reveal any relevant information he may have, or which may be in the possession of his former lawyers or the royal family, that is relevant to what he knew about the alleged illegal behaviour before the end of 2013.
If Harry knew he had a possible claim against the NGN before that date, then the case could be dismissed on the basis that it was brought too late.
“I have real concerns that the issue of disclosure relating to the ‘question of knowledge’ has not been adequately addressed by solicitors [advogados] of the applicants,” said Judge Timothy Fancourt, adding that so far they had presented only five documents considered relevant.
He also stated that it was inappropriate that most of the searching and selection of relevant documents appeared to have been done by Harry himself until very recently.
Anthony Hudson, NGN’s lawyer, had told the court that Harry was creating an “obstacle course” on the issue, and the release of other possibly relevant emails had also been highly unsatisfactory.
Judge Fancourt said there was “worrying evidence” that a large number of potentially relevant documents and messages between Harry and JR Moehringer, the ghostwriter of his hugely successful memoir “Spare”, via the messaging app Signal had been destroyed.
Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne said the suggestion that Harry was withholding or destroying material was the “height of hypocrisy”, saying NGN had deliberately deleted millions of emails as part of a way to hide incriminating evidence.
However, Fancourt determined that a broader search of Harry’s laptop, text messages and WhatsApp was needed to examine message exchanges from 2005 to early 2023.
He said letters should also be sent to the royal household and his lawyers requesting that any hard copies or electronic documents relating to Harry’s communications be returned to the prince so they can also be examined.
Source: CNN Brasil
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