The British monarchy continues to break records: if the coronation a month ago of Charles III was the first in seven decades, the appearance yesterday as a witness of Prince Henry in the Courts was the first of a member of the royal family in more than 130 years In particular, since in 1891 Prince Edward, heir to the throne, was called to testify about a cheating scandal at cards.
His mother, Queen Victoria, was not in the least amused by that subject, and nothing related to Henry concerns his father and his brother Guillem, with whom he barely has a relationship from his virtual abdication, renunciation of royal duties, exile in California and criticism of the Windsors. Nor his appearance in the Courts to accuse the newspapers of the Mirror group of having hacked his mobile messaging and hired private detectives to follow his movements and look for scandals. And, in passing, to say that “the British Government has hit rock bottom”.
Dressed in a dark suit, in a utilitarian room, decorated with Ikea-style furniture and looking more like a school classroom than anything else, Enric began the session by reading a fifty-one-page testimony in which he claimed that the intrusion il ·lawyer for the Mirror group (he also has claims against the Mail and the Sun that have yet to go to trial) ruined his childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, portraying him as a “fool”, accusing him of drug use, and suggesting that his real father was James Hewitt (he claims there were several attempts to obtain samples of his DNA), all to distance him from the royal family and give him an artificial role selling newspapers.
The Duke of Sussex presented 140 articles published between 1996 and 2010 as evidence that journalists at the Mirror Group, with the connivance or at least the knowledge of their directors, used illegal means (notably hacking the answering machine of his cell phone) to find out what he was doing and saying, where he was going and with whom, and attributed his ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy’s eventual break-up to these activities.
The prince was cross-examined for several hours by defense lawyer Andrew Green, who alleged that all the information was either already in the public domain or was obtained through legitimate sources. . The Mirror admits to having hacked phones of public figures (the issue has already cost it 1.5 billion euros in legal costs and compensation to victims), but claims that Enric is not one of them.
The Duke of Sussex’s long-running campaign against Britain’s tabloid press has finally come to fruition, and it’s lived up to expectations. In a crowded room, with representatives of news media from all over the world, Enric accused “some directors and journalists of having blood on their hands and having caused not only pain, but also, indirectly, death” (accuses the paparazzi of his mother Princess Diana’s fatal accident in Paris).
Broken relationships, an unhappy childhood and adolescence, episodes of depression and paranoia are some of the responsibilities that the prince in exile attributes to the incessant persecution of the press, in a trial not without irony, because in the United Kingdom the courts – like the Government and other institutions – are “of the crown”. That is, sit down.
