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The undying rage of Prince Harry · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, July ninth, twenty twenty six. Australia has a
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  Speaker 1: serious problem with anti Semitism, says Israel's ambassador Hillel Newman.
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  Speaker 1: He writes today in The Australian. He's never seen such
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  Speaker 1: levels of hatred in his twenty six years in foreign servers.
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  Speaker 1: Newman says, even in predominantly Islamic countries where he'd previously worked,
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  Speaker 1: moderate Muslims understood Israel's position and showed more understanding. Prince
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  Speaker 1: Harry's in a rage again. A humiliating defeat in court,
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  Speaker 1: a furious accusation against the judge who ruled against him,
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  Speaker 1: appointed rebuff from the royal family, and a comeback tour
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  Speaker 1: of the United Kingdom that's not.
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  Speaker 2: Going to plan.
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  Speaker 1: Today, our journalist Helen Trinker joins us from London to
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  Speaker 1: discuss how the Duke of Sussex crusade against the media
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  Speaker 1: went south and whether there's a way back. Helen's here
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  Speaker 1: in just a moment.
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  Speaker 3: Prince Harry has lost his latest legal case against the media,
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  Speaker 3: taking on the publishers of the Daily Mail and Mail
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  Speaker 3: on Sunday.
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  Speaker 1: Failed to sufficiently prove their claim.
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  Speaker 3: Harry, there was a lot riding on this y in
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  Speaker 3: and there are really two battles here at play. There's
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  Speaker 3: one with the Tableau Press and there's one with his family,
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  Speaker 3: and the two are inextricably linked.
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  Speaker 2: I think it giants there even clearer line between Harry
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  Speaker 2: and Meghan and the rest of the family in terms
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  Speaker 2: of the public mind.
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  Speaker 1: This is Helen Trinker, an associate editor with The Australian
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  Speaker 1: who's in London. Here's a statement released after the judgment
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  Speaker 1: by Prince Harry and Baroness Lawrence, one of the co plaintiffs.
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  Speaker 1: We've used a voice actor.
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  Speaker 4: We came to court seeking justice and accountability, but we
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  Speaker 4: have received neither.
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  Speaker 1: The case is the latest stage of Prince Harry's campaign
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  Speaker 1: against the media. Last year, he accepted from Newsgroup Newspapers,
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  Speaker 1: owned by the same parent company as The Australian, a
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  Speaker 1: financial settlement and a full and unequivocal apology for intrusions
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  Speaker 1: into his privacy, including by private investigators working for The
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  Speaker 1: Sun newspaper and now defunct Sunday Masthead News of the
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  Speaker 1: World between nineteen ninety six and twenty eleven. In twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty four, Mirror Group Newspapers also settled a claim brought
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  Speaker 1: by Harry for a lawful breach of privacy over articles published,
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  Speaker 1: paying him around three hundred thousand pounds in damages plus
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  Speaker 1: his legal costs. The Mirror had already admitted it was
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  Speaker 1: in the wrong. In twenty fifteen, Mirror Group Newspapers was
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  Speaker 1: ordered to pay more than a million pounds in damages
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  Speaker 1: to other celebrities for hacking their voicemails. In that twenty
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  Speaker 1: fifteen case, the Mirror published an apology that was also
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  Speaker 1: read aloud in court by its barrister, declaring the hacking
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  Speaker 1: was quote an unwarranted and unacceptable intrusion into people's private
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  Speaker 1: lives and it shouldn't have happened. That barrister was Matthew Nicklin,
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  Speaker 1: then a Queen's Council now the High Court judge, who
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  Speaker 1: went on to preside in Harry's case against Associated Newspapers,
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  Speaker 1: publishers of The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. So
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  Speaker 1: when now Justice Nicklin ruled against Harry this week, the
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  Speaker 1: Prince was quick to connect the dots. We've used a
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  Speaker 1: voice actor to read from his statement.
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  Speaker 4: This judgment represents a complete reversal of the position which
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  Speaker 4: previous judges have taken in relation to the hacking claims
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  Speaker 4: successfully brought against both Newsgroup Newspapers and Mirror Group Newspapers,
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  Speaker 4: who were represented by at the time the judge who
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  Speaker 4: made this decision.
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  Speaker 1: The judge hasn't responded publicly, but it's worth noting that
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  Speaker 1: every judge was once a lawyer with clients who paid
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  Speaker 1: them to represent a point of view, and that doesn't
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  Speaker 1: imply the judge is biased in any way. Helen, what's
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  Speaker 1: the reaction been in London to this loss for Harry?
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  Speaker 2: Look, I think there's sort of universal belief that it's
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  Speaker 2: a massive loss to him because he's really pursued the
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  Speaker 2: tabloids I spose, you know, for about seven years. This
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  Speaker 2: is case number three and it's very devastating. I think
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  Speaker 2: you can judge the impact on him by the statement
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  Speaker 2: that he put out afterwards, which was pretty extraordinarily. He
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  Speaker 2: is a voice actor.
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  Speaker 1: Reading again from Harry and Baroness Lawrence's statement.
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  Speaker 4: It is a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not
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  Speaker 4: altogether unexpected. However, the lengths to which which the Court
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  Speaker 4: has gone to exonerate the mail is as shocking as
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  Speaker 4: it is totally unwarranted. It feels here like one rule
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  Speaker 4: for the newspapers and another for the claimants, and I.
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  Speaker 2: Feel, in a way perhaps it's really the end, in
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  Speaker 2: many ways, of all of his efforts to inverted Comma's
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  Speaker 2: rehabilitate himself in the last few years.
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  Speaker 1: Prince Harry gave emotional evidence at trial about how press
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  Speaker 1: intrusion has, in his view, ruined his right to privacy,
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  Speaker 1: destroyed relationships, and shattered his trust in even close friends
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  Speaker 1: and family.
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  Speaker 2: We've used a voice actor.
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  Speaker 4: For the avoidance of doubt. I am not friends with
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  Speaker 4: any of these journalists, and I never have been. My
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  Speaker 4: social circles were not leaky. They have made my wife's
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  Speaker 4: life an absolute misery.
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  Speaker 1: My Lord Harry told the court the press coverage before
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  Speaker 1: and after his marriage to me and Markele enhanced his
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  Speaker 1: sense of injustice, even though the articles he complained of
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  Speaker 1: were published long before he met the now Duchess of Sussex.
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  Speaker 1: He and Meghan departed the United Kingdom, and that really
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  Speaker 1: seemed to kind of take the leash off Harry in
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  Speaker 1: terms of his pursuit of media organizations. This case always
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  Speaker 1: seemed like it was going to be difficult. The Mail
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  Speaker 1: came into court obviously determined to defend itself. It brought
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  Speaker 1: its journalists and a senior editor into court to argue
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  Speaker 1: that there was nothing wrong with their reporting, and they
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  Speaker 1: went to the trouble of revealing how they really did
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  Speaker 1: get these stories and Helen reading through the judgment, the
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  Speaker 1: way the Mail explains getting these stories seems to me
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  Speaker 1: like an old fashioned shoe leather reporting. They are sometimes
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  Speaker 1: paying people for information, but that was common practice in
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  Speaker 1: British papers, paying local journalists for example, paying contacts. But
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  Speaker 1: they're not doing anything unlawful. How could Harry have thought
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  Speaker 1: he ever had a chance of winning here?
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  Speaker 2: Look, I think there's a couple of things going on.
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  Speaker 2: When you review the list of stories that were actually
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  Speaker 2: assessed by the court, they are about fifty seven articles
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  Speaker 2: and incidents mainly articles. Thought, yeah, these are pretty full
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  Speaker 2: on stories, not just about Harry but in everyone. So
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  Speaker 2: this is tabloid culture. I suppose, let's face that it's
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  Speaker 2: something which would upset a lot of the people who
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  Speaker 2: are depicted in the stories. Therefore the hurt, I suppose,
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  Speaker 2: and then the suspicion of where they've come from is
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  Speaker 2: sort of easy to understand the sort of paranoid that
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  Speaker 2: would grow around someone like a young royal carrion. So
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  Speaker 2: I think he felt and others joined him in it.
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  Speaker 2: They couldn't believe where some of these stories had come from.
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  Speaker 2: But you're absolutely right. I mean about forty journalists I
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  Speaker 2: think gave evidence and they certainly denied completely the fact
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  Speaker 2: that they'd done anything unlawful. Yeah, it's robust, as you say,
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  Speaker 2: it's robust London tabloid reporting. But as the judge made
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  Speaker 2: very clear, that's a long one from effectively almost unlawful
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  Speaker 2: and therefore criminal events. So he wanted to be really convinced,
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  Speaker 2: you know, that the claimants had a case, And as
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  Speaker 2: he said, it's up to the claimants in this case,
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  Speaker 2: that is Harry and all the six others, to prove
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  Speaker 2: their case. It's not really up to the male to
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  Speaker 2: prove where they got it from, because even though they
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  Speaker 2: can't necessarily identify exactly where something has come from, it
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  Speaker 2: does not, if so facta, mean that it's unlawful, which
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  Speaker 2: is kind of the approach that I suppose Harry and
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  Speaker 2: his team took.
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  Speaker 1: He is more from Harry's statement.
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  Speaker 4: While the claimants presented evidence male journalists simply gave denials,
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  Speaker 4: and the court chose uncritically to believe them, even in
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  Speaker 4: the face of inconsistencies, contradictions, and blatant untruths that were
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  Speaker 4: obvious to neutral observers in court when compared to the
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  Speaker 4: documents we presented to the court, evidence which we believed
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  Speaker 4: was compelling at the time and remains so now.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the test was they had to prove that this
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  Speaker 1: information was private and also that it had been obtained unlawfully.
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  Speaker 1: But again and again in the claim, the celebrities who
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  Speaker 1: include Elton John and his husband, the actresses Liz Hurley
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  Speaker 1: and Sadie Frost, they're asking the judge to infer that
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  Speaker 1: these stories were obtained illegally, because of course none of
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  Speaker 1: their friends would be talking to journalists. Helen, I'll read
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  Speaker 1: you one of those headlines. This is from a Male
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  Speaker 1: on Sunday story from the twenty eighth of November two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and four. Harry besotted with Chelsea, his first true love.
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  Speaker 1: You can just imagine that in three hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 1: point on the front of the Mail on Sunday would
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  Speaker 1: have looked great and it was a great scoop. But
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  Speaker 1: the thing about this story, like all these stories, is
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  Speaker 1: that it was true he did have a new girlfriend,
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  Speaker 1: as if Barbeweem, woman called Chelsea Davy. They were staying
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  Speaker 1: at Apollo Resort together in Argentina. She did live in
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  Speaker 1: South Africa. The mail went and knocked on a door
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  Speaker 1: and she told them that she was Prince Erroo's girlfriend.
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  Speaker 2: Effectively, I suppose it's also in play here is that
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  Speaker 2: if you go back twenty years, which is in or
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  Speaker 2: more than twenty years when some of these articles were written,
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  Speaker 2: I suppose there's almost an assumption sometimes on the part
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  Speaker 2: of royalty that they would be able to control what
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  Speaker 2: was written about them. And this was the era by then,
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  Speaker 2: which where that wasn't happening. You know, this is the
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  Speaker 2: sort of stuff that would never have been written about
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  Speaker 2: Prince Philip or the Queen for example, years ago. So
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  Speaker 2: there'd been a big change in the culture. So he
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  Speaker 2: was you know, he really felt hard done by, I
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  Speaker 2: suppose by just even true stories coming out. You know,
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  Speaker 2: he felt an invasion of his privacy. But it is
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  Speaker 2: interesting that you use that word and pick up by
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  Speaker 2: the word that the judge mentions as well about inference,
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  Speaker 2: and he makes that very clear I think it's a
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  Speaker 2: very clear judgment in that sense, because two things, inference
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  Speaker 2: and suspicion, are not enough, he says. And I think
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  Speaker 2: it's interesting to know whether there would or could be
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  Speaker 2: any further cases. There won't be any further action from
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  Speaker 2: Harry in terms of other actions against other media, but
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  Speaker 2: complainants would certainly need to prove that the materials obtained unlawfully,
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  Speaker 2: rather than just sort of say that they can't understand
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  Speaker 2: how it happened or in or be suspicious that somehow
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  Speaker 2: the media organization has gone too far. The purdon to proof,
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  Speaker 2: I suppose from this case, is perhaps a little bit higher.
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  Speaker 1: Harry was joined in his case by Elton John, his husband,
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  Speaker 1: David Furnish, actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, and Doreen Lawrence,
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  Speaker 1: the mother of murdered British teenager Stephen Lawrence. She's now
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  Speaker 1: a baroness. In this matter. The Mail was never going
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  Speaker 1: to simply settle. It threw tens of millions of pounds
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  Speaker 1: at the case, including bringing to court reporters and a
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  Speaker 1: long serving editor to defend their journalism. The plaintiffs claimed
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  Speaker 1: they were the victims of unlawful Information Gathering UIG for short.
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  Speaker 1: They alleged the newspapers used private investigators, phone hacking, corrupt payments,
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  Speaker 1: and obtaining in information by deception in a technique known
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  Speaker 1: as blagging, like pretending to be someone you're not in
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  Speaker 1: order to convince a hotel desk clerk to tell you
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  Speaker 1: who's staying in what room. It's been a pretty harrowing
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  Speaker 1: decade and a half of the British newspapers for Fleet Street,
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  Speaker 1: but they were helen. I think they were in the
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  Speaker 1: most aggressive newspaper culture in the world. Even the Americans
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  Speaker 1: found the British newspapers pretty full on, I think, and
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  Speaker 1: Australia has never had this culture of kiss and tell
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  Speaker 1: stories or page three girls, or payment for information. Those
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  Speaker 1: things are pretty taboo in Australian newspaper journalism, and I think,
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  Speaker 1: certainly in my career, always have been, perhaps with some
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  Speaker 1: exceptions on the fringes. What's your sense of what the
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  Speaker 1: lesson is for journalism overall about what happened in Britain.
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  Speaker 2: I think the lesson is to stick to the proper
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  Speaker 2: reporting techniques and you'll be fine. I think the heartening
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  Speaker 2: thing I suppose for journal and certainly for like papers
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  Speaker 2: like the Mail Is that they can feel a sort
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  Speaker 2: of confidence that if they do stay within the law
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  Speaker 2: in terms of gathering material, that they won't face these
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  Speaker 2: sorts of cases.
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  Speaker 1: Harry is in Britain at the moment. First he was
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  Speaker 1: going to be staying at Buckingham Palace, then he was
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  Speaker 1: not staying at Buckingham Palace. He was bringing Meghan and
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  Speaker 1: the kids, then he wasn't. And he's equally furious about
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  Speaker 1: press intrusion and the denial of taxpayer funded security for
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  Speaker 1: him and his family when he's in the United Kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: That's why he says he hasn't brought Meghan and the
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  Speaker 1: two children to see their grandfather the King. How does
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  Speaker 1: all this play for the royals more generally Helen at
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  Speaker 1: a moment when the Prince and Princess of Wales are
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  Speaker 1: climbing mountains for charity and kind charming everybody around the cork.
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  Speaker 2: Look, I think it drives through even clearer line between
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  Speaker 2: Harry and Meghan and the rest of the family in
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  Speaker 2: terms of the public mind. I mean, everyone else is
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  Speaker 2: sort of, as someone said recently, getting on with the
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  Speaker 2: business of being royal in a very sort of modern
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  Speaker 2: way and Harry is not really hitting the mark. I
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  Speaker 2: think what's really sad in so many ways for Harry
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  Speaker 2: is there's a person who has been so worried about
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  Speaker 2: press attention. You know, he blames the press for the
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  Speaker 2: fatal accident that killed his mother Diana so long ago,
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  Speaker 2: and he has had a real antipathy to the press.
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  Speaker 2: What's happened now is that he's attracted ever more attention.
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  Speaker 2: His press is really bad and it gets worse, and
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  Speaker 2: this case hasn't made it much better. I think it
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  Speaker 2: does show up the difference between the Duke of Sussex
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  Speaker 2: and the rest of the royal family. I can't see
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  Speaker 2: from all of this, you know, way back really because
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  Speaker 2: he came to London, he did that, and he didn't
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  Speaker 2: figure out how to sort of go to Buckingham Palace
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  Speaker 2: and get the family to Buckingham Palace and get on
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  Speaker 2: with it. See the King have some sort of level
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  Speaker 2: of reconciliation with his father, and now it seems even worse.
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  Speaker 2: And that the timing of this court case of course
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  Speaker 2: could not have been worse for him, given the fact
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  Speaker 2: that he's in the UK for about a week. He's
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: here as a patron and the founder ready of the
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  Speaker 2: Invictus Games, which is a fantastic legacy of his, and
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  Speaker 2: yesterday where he was at Chathamhouse in the middle in
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  Speaker 2: the center of London giving a speech to a sort
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  Speaker 2: of an Invictors Games conference in the afternoon when he
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  Speaker 2: was given the news about this, so it was you know,
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  Speaker 2: it's been a pretty excruciating time for him one Emergens.
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  Speaker 1: Helen Trinka is an associate editor with The Australian. You
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  Speaker 1: can check out all our reporting of this case and
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  Speaker 1: the royals anytime at the Australian dot com dot au