Prince Harry was awarded 140,600 pounds last year after the London high court ruled that he had been the victim of “modest” phone hacking and other unlawful information gathering by journalists of British newspapers. Now it has been claimed that the Duke of Sussex deliberately destroyed potential evidence relating to the high court hacking claim, The Telegraph reported.The new claims surfaced ahead of a hearing on the case on Thursday.
Prince Harry reportedly had received two encrypted hard drives comprising work documents from his staff’s shared drive to which he said he no longer had any access. But before Thursday’s hearing, it emerged that the hard drives were found — one at his California home and the other at the office of his US lawyer.
News Group Newspapers (NGN) has now sought the release of emails, as well as text messages and WhatsApp messages, sent and received by the Duke, and material held on two encrypted hard drives.
The publisher demanded to see records of communication between the Duke and Sir Clive Alderton, the King’s private secretary, as well as Sir Michael Stevens, the Keeper of the Privy Purse and treasurer to the King.
It wanted access to the many texts sent between the Duke and JR Moehringer, the author who ghostwrote his memoir, Spare.
David Sherborne, for the Duke, said the pair communicated via Signal and their chat history was wiped before the book was published in January last year. He said three Hotmail addresses used by Prince Harry prior to 2014 – spikewales@hotmail.com; spikewells@hotmail.com and bazasales69@hotmail.com – were no longer accessible.
However, the Duke’s legal team has searched other email accounts to which he has access – h@sjpkp.com and ha@sjpkp.com, which span a period from January 2014 until April this year, for three keywords, and is now searching them for the 55 search terms sought by NGN.
Prince Harry reportedly had received two encrypted hard drives comprising work documents from his staff’s shared drive to which he said he no longer had any access. But before Thursday’s hearing, it emerged that the hard drives were found — one at his California home and the other at the office of his US lawyer.
News Group Newspapers (NGN) has now sought the release of emails, as well as text messages and WhatsApp messages, sent and received by the Duke, and material held on two encrypted hard drives.
The publisher demanded to see records of communication between the Duke and Sir Clive Alderton, the King’s private secretary, as well as Sir Michael Stevens, the Keeper of the Privy Purse and treasurer to the King.
It wanted access to the many texts sent between the Duke and JR Moehringer, the author who ghostwrote his memoir, Spare.
David Sherborne, for the Duke, said the pair communicated via Signal and their chat history was wiped before the book was published in January last year. He said three Hotmail addresses used by Prince Harry prior to 2014 – spikewales@hotmail.com; spikewells@hotmail.com and bazasales69@hotmail.com – were no longer accessible.
However, the Duke’s legal team has searched other email accounts to which he has access – h@sjpkp.com and ha@sjpkp.com, which span a period from January 2014 until April this year, for three keywords, and is now searching them for the 55 search terms sought by NGN.
