Enrique de Inglaterra (38 years old) has finally decided to settle accounts with the sensational press – the British tabloids – which for years he has considered his main enemy, the cause of all his ills and the ultimate reason for the death of his mother, Lady Di. “How much more blood should those typing fingers smudge before someone puts an end to this madness?” exclaimed Carlos III’s son. in a 55-page testimony presented to the judge and before the hearing this Tuesday. The contents were announced at the beginning of the session.
The document forms the basis on which the Duke of Sussex, along with three other plaintiffs (actors Nikki Sanderson and Michael Turner and Fiona Wightman, ex-wife of comedian Paul Whitehouse) decided to sue MGN, the editorial group that owns to fight the Daily Mirror, which he accuses of having illegally obtained information about his private life for years. Essentially, the prince accuses eavesdropping and hacking on his mobile devices. However, up to 100 plaintiffs have joined the case, including singer Cheryl Cole, the heirs of the late George Michael or footballer Ian Wright.
Henry of England wanted to set a precedent and override the unwritten rule of the British royal family: no explanation, no complaint (neither explain nor complain). For the first time in 130 years, a member of the Windsors has chosen to sit on the bench in court to settle bills (in 1890, then-Prince Edward had to testify in a libel suit over a deck of cards).
“It was a downward spiral from the start, with the tabloids constantly trying to paint me as a troublesome young man, until they got me to do something stupid that would make a good story and sell a lot of copies,” Prince Harry writes . “Looking back, I understand that it was absolutely evil behavior,” he concludes. “Since I was born, the press has been hostile to me,” he summarizes in a text that contains the same accumulation of resentment, childhood trauma and lack of reporting that the second son of Carlos de Inglaterra and Lady Di had already anticipated in Spare’s autobiography (In the Shadow, eds. Plaza & Janes).
The problem, as many pundits expected, is that Enrique is no longer venting his grudges in a Netflix series or in an interview with American presenter Oprah Winfrey, but before a British court that has laid the burden on the Duke of Sussex the test will be imposed.
The moment of interrogation
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Around 10:00 a.m. that Tuesday (11:00 a.m. Peninsular Time), Prince Enrique gently and with a slight smile exited the Range Rover SUV that had taken him to the Rolls Buildings, the court complex in London (the financial and legal center of the metropolis), where the Supreme Court of England and Wales hears the case. Cameras and reporters from all over the world awaited his arrival. Half an hour later, the Duke of Sussex sat on the witness stand and was questioned by MGN lawyer Andrew Green. “An opponent to fear, with an aggressive and sharp style on the pitch (…). Inflexible and tireless, particularly comfortable with interrogations and with a great ability to guide recalcitrant judges,” Green defines The Legal 500 website, the UK’s leading guide for lawyers and legal professionals.
The Duke of Sussex had already set a dangerous precedent the day before. Recently arriving from California, where he lives with his wife Meghan Markle, both he and his attorneys decided that his presence in the courtroom on the day the trial began was not necessary because the day was taken up with Meghan Markle’s preliminary arguments would become both parts. Timothy Fancourt, the judge in charge of the trial, was somewhat frustrated and surprised to see that the hearing was paced for him. “It’s never good to keep a judge waiting, although I don’t think it translates into any kind of punishment. But angering the judge kind of puts Prince Harry on the defensive,” predicted Joshua Rozenberg, lawyer and media legal analyst at the BBC.
The Prince’s gentle tone and easy-going manner came to the fore as attorney Green analyzed each of the 33 newspaper articles that Henry of England’s legal team wanted to produce in evidence: his mother Lady Diana’s visits to Eton, the elite school, Enrique and his brother Guillermo lived studying; the prince meets friends in a London pub for Sunday lunchtime; the day he broke his finger, or the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday gala, his great-grandmother Elizabeth, which neither he nor his brother attended because they preferred to go hiking.
When Enrique, with the details revealed in each of these stories, wanted to reinforce the suspicion that the journalists had illegally gained access to his private conversations and schemes, attorney Green cornered the prince with his constant demands for concrete evidence. The lawyer pointed out that the prince received his first mobile phone in 1998, while the first stories he presented as evidence of spying took place as early as 1996. Other newspaper articles contributed by the Duke of Sussex’s legal team limited themselves to reproducing stories. The competition – in particular the Daily Mirror – had said this days before, stressed Green. But above all, the main argument of the lawyer, who from the beginning of his speech expressed his solidarity with Enrique for “a life constantly exposed to the intrusion of the press”, was very simple: he was fed up with the constant harassment B. of the media and invasion of your privacy do not prove that illegal methods of information gathering were used.
“How is it possible for someone to know that I was in that particular pub on that particular date and time so they could take my picture?” Enrique wondered in his written response to the episode featuring the pub at the Chelsea Quarter: in London, where the prince celebrated his 16th birthday with friends.
“Was this information obtained by hacking the cell phone?” the attorney asked Green.
“You must ask the journalist that question,” the prince answered defiantly.
“So, isn’t that your accusation?” the lawyer replied quickly.
-“Yes, it is”.
“On what basis?”
“I don’t think my job as a witness is to create the article or determine what information was illegally obtained and what was not.” That’s the work of journalists,” replied a cornered prince.
In his “scorched earth” challenge to the British institutions, Enrique has even decided to attack the current government: “At the national level, our country is currently being judged worldwide by the state of its press and its government: and I believe that both are hitting rock bottom.” have,” the prince wrote in the statement to the judge.
The trial of the owners of the Daily Mirror – the first in a series of three trials by the Duke of Sussex against Britain’s tabloids – could set an important precedent when it comes to calculating the amount of compensation due from tabloids for years of wrongdoing What is required is practices, methods, exercises. However, it can also have the opposite effect if Henry of England does not succeed in concretizing the resentment he has accumulated over the years with evidence in court.
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