Prince Harry court case – latest: Coronation Street star claims hair ‘set on fire’ after ‘nasty girl’ narrative

Nikki Sanderson is the latest to take the witness box after Prince Harry’s bombshell testimony earlier this week

Prince Harry arrives at High Court for battle with MGN over phone hacking

Soap actress Nikki Sanderson said her hair was set on fire by a group of girls after Mirror articles painted her as a “stuck up, nasty, party girl”.

She said in her witness statement: “People would elbow me, push me and, on one occasion, a group of girls even set my hair on fire. This particular incident happened in the toilets of a club and the group of girls had been bothering me all night.

“I had gone to the toilets on my own and I was washing my hands and I smelt burning. I looked down and they had set fire to the back of my hair. Fortunately, I wasn’t wearing any hair product, otherwise, my hair would have gone up in flames.

She added: “It’s because of this narrative created and repeated by MGN that I was stuck up, nasty, rude, promiscuous, and a party girl. It feels like character assassination.”

Meanwhile, the Duke of Sussex has landed back in Los Angeles, after a flying visit to the UK to give evidence in his High Court phone hacking case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).

Key Points

• Sanderson says her hair was ‘set on fire’ by girls after ‘character assassination’ by Mirror articles
• Nikki Sanderson tells court phone hacking left her in ‘constant state of paranoia'
• Prince Harry returns to US after hacking trial testimony ‘without seeing William or Charles’
• At a glance: Key moments from Prince Harry and Mirror journalist’s testimony
• Piers Morgan could have ‘injected’ information from voicemails into stories, court told

[8 June 2023 10:19 · Andy Gregory]

Former Mirror journalist Jane Kerr back in witness box

Former Mirror journalist Jane Kerr is back in the witness box this morning, after the judge criticised “timetabling” issues at the day’s close yesterday.

Prince Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne said he had around 90 minutes of further questions for the paper’s former royal editor, which was scheduled to start slightly earlier this morning, as Ms Kerr already had a prior appointment.

[8 June 2023 09:43 · Andy Gregory]

Opinion | At first, it didn’t look good for Harry – but the tide turned

Samuel Fishwick, deputy editor of Independent Voices, was at the High Court yesterday. Here is his take on the Duke of Sussex’s historic testimony:

At first, things didn’t look good for Harry: try as we might to strain our ears, his voice deep and breathy, he didn’t put up a shred of hard evidence to explicitly prove any of the Mirror Group Newspapers’ stories – lurid as they were about his youthful misadventures – in question leant on “unlawful information gathering”.

Instead, coincidences were deemed “incredibly suspicious”; “highly suspicious”; or viewed with “incredible amounts of suspiciousness”. There was a lot of suspicion to go around. But where was the crunch? He says he’s been “consistently hacked” for 15 years and that “it could have been happening on a daily basis” – then added that the lack of evidence is “part of the reason I’m here”.

But the tide turned. The funny thing is that Harry actually wears the witness box rather well. He soaked up Green’s early barbs like a plush pin cushion. His broad shoulders filled it squarely. He shrugged off the punchy KC like a prize boxer for more than seven full hours. A bruising encounter, yes. But Green didn’t appear to land any palpable hits.

[8 June 2023 09:29 · Andy Gregory]

Former tabloid journalist claims ‘we did much worse’ to Harry’s father

A former News of the World journalist has claimed “we did much worse” to King Charles as he defended claims of the press treatment of Prince Harry.

Asked whether, as someone who has admitted being involved in phone hacking, he feels any guilt or shame, the newspaper’s former deputy features editor Paul McMullan told Good Morning Britain: “Well not really, because we did much worse to his dad.

“And his dad just dismissed it [as], ‘oh, those annoying newspaper people’, and got over it.”

Accepting the host’s point that phone hacking is illegal, Mr McMullan said, “it was, but well you could say that taking drugs is illegal”.

Claiming to note that there is a “balance” between people in the public sphere’s mental health and press scrutiny of their behaviour, he continued: “I chased [Harry’s late] mother a lot ... I chased her round the world for about five years.”

[8 June 2023 09:04 · Andy Gregory]

Lilibet birthday snub is ‘a reflection of strained relationship’ in royal family, expert says

A royal expert has said that the radio silence from senior members of the royal family on Princess Lilibet Diana’s second birthday reflected the “strained relationship” between the King and Lilibet’s parents, my colleague Ellie Muir reports.

Last year, the official Twitter accounts for the royal family, King Charles and Queen Camilla, plus that of the Prince and Princess of Wales, all wished Lilibet a happy first birthday.

But as the young royal turned two on Sunday, neither of the three Twitter accounts publicly sent their birthday wishes to the young royal, who is the only daughter and second child of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle.

[8 June 2023 08:49 · Andy Gregory]

Piers Morgan says he will ‘maintain a dignified silence’ on Harry trial

Former Mirror editor Piers Morgan has claimed he will “maintain a dignified silence” until the Prince Harry’s phone hacking case has concluded, after the Duke of Sussex took aim at the presenter in his testimony this week.

Approached in the street by Channel 4 News reporters, Mr Morgan insisted that he “can’t say anything until this is over”.

Pressed again for this thoughts, he added: “I would love to, as you can probably imagine, but unusually I’m going to maintain a dignified silence until it is all over.”

[8 June 2023 08:15 · Matt Mathers]

9 bombshell claims from Prince Harry in first witness box showdown

Prince Harry’s decision to become the first royal in 130 years to enter a witness box has revealed a host of claims about his life and relationship with the British press, as he gave five hours of testimony in his blockbuster trial against The Mirror publisher.

Andy Gregory takes a look at some of the most explosive claims made by the prince:

[8 June 2023 07:45 · Matt Mathers]

What the papers say - 8 June

Prince Harry’s legal case against the publisher of the Daily Mirror makes the front of several newspapers this morning.

Metro focuses on a claim by the duke that he found a tracker on the car of Chelsy Davies, his ex-girlfriend.

The Times, Telegraph and i cover comments by an “emotional” duke, who said he went to court to protect wife Meghan.

In a comment piece, the Daily Mail says King Charles must banish Harry to “private life” if he carries on his “facile assault” on the government.

Here’s how the UK press covered day two of the case:

[8 June 2023 07:30 · Matt Mathers]

Comment: More like a boy than a man – Prince Harry looked crumpled in the witness box

Harry has never been very fond of exams, bless him, and this was certainly a cross one: the masterly Andrew Green KC peering down sternly, taking off his glasses to jab home his points, popping them back on again to peer incredulously at the prince whenever he said something silly, writes Samuel Fishwick

Read Samuel’s full piece here:

[8 June 2023 07:13 · Matt Mathers]

Why is a US think-tank seeking the release of the Duke of Sussex’s application form?

Prince Harry has been giving evidence at the High Court in London this week as part of a landmark legal action against Mirror Group Newspapers, which he is suing for damages after alleging that journalists at its titles had resorted to underhand methods to secure stories about him and his family, including phone hacking, gaining information by deception and employing private investigators for unlawful activities.

“How much more blood will stain their typing fingers before someone can put a stop to this madness?” he wrote in his 55-page witness statement, accusing the tabloid media of bad practice.

But the Duke of Sussex, 38, is also currently the subject of a second court case due to get underway on the other side of the Atlantic on Tuesday.

Joe Sommerland takes a look at why:

[7 June 2023 20:07 · Sam Rkaina]

Harry urged to provide ‘hard evidence’ to back phone hacking claims

Prince Harry was repeatedly asked to provide “hard evidence” to support his newspaper phone hacking claims on Wednesday, as he told the High Court he brought the case to protect his wife Meghan from abuse.

Despite his suspicions of widespread hacking, the Duke of Sussex said he “didn’t know” the answer to questions put to him by Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) lawyer Andrew Green KC 18 times in just three hours.

The 38-year-old prince accused publishers of “industrial-scale destruction of evidence” and blamed a lack of call data on the alleged use of “burner” phones, of which no record would be kept.

“I believe phone-hacking was on an industrial scale across at least three of the papers at the time and that is beyond doubt,” he told the court.

Click here for the full story on Wednesday’s court hearing.

Prince Harry leaves the High Court in London after he finished giving evidence on Wednesday (PA)