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
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Your support makes all the difference.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).
9 bombshell claims from Prince Harry in first witness box showdown
Piers Morgan ‘could have injected information from phone hacking into Prince Harry stories’
Who is Chelsy Davy? Former girlfriend of Prince Harry discussed in phone hacking trial
More like a boy than a man – Prince Harry looked crumpled in the witness box
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.
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.
Opinion: 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
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.”
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.
Lilibet birthday snub ‘reflects strained relationship’ in royal family, expert says
Harry and Meghan’s daughter turned two on Sunday but there was radio silence from the royal family
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.”
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:
9 bombshell claims from Prince Harry in first witness box showdown
Duke of Sussex takes aim at ‘bloodstained’ tabloids, ‘rock bottom’ government and former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan in historic testimony
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:
What the papers say – June 8
The Duke of Sussex giving evidence in court features on the front pages of Thursday’s newspapers.
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:
Opinion: 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
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:
Why is a US think-tank seeking the release of Prince Harry’s visa application form?
Heritage Foundation accuses Department of Homeland Security of making exceptions for ‘celebrity elites’, citing royal’s recent drug use confessions, reports Joe Sommerlad
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.
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