Prince Harry Accused of ‘Deliberately’ Destroying Evidence in Phone Hacking Case

The publisher of the British tabloid The Sun said Harry deleted drafts and communications related to his memoir Spare that may be relevant to the lawsuit

Prince Harry has been ordered to explain himself after the publisher of The Sun said the royal “deliberately destroyed” potential evidence related to his phone hacking suit against the tabloid, The Telegraph reports.

At a hearing yesterday, June 27, a lawyer for News Group Newspapers (which is owned by Rupert Murdoch) accused Harry of deleting drafts of his memoir, Spare, as well as communications with his ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer, that might be relevant to the ongoing lawsuit. NGN was seeking a potential trove of information — including emails and texts, plus material on two encrypted hard drives — that they said would’ve been generated after the suit against NGN was brought in 2019. (Harry is one of over 40 people involved in the case, which is set to officially begin next January).

The judge overseeing the case, Justice Timothy Fancourt, agreed with NGN’s lawyer, saying there was “troubling evidence that a large number of potentially relevant documents and confidential messages between the Duke and the ghostwriter of Spare were destroyed sometime between 2021 and 2023, well after this claim was underway.”

Fancourt said the Duke of Sussex and his legal team must try to retrieve the messages between the lawyer and Moehringer. He also said they must get in touch with other royal family officials and ask them to submit any records of communication with Harry.

Harry’s lawyer, David Sherborne, defended the royal’s disclosure practices up to this point, filing court papers that accused NGN of a “transparent old-fashioned fishing expedition” (via People). Sherborne said Harry had “conducted extensive searches, going above and beyond his obligations,” including scouring his home in California and checking with the “Royal Household” about potentially relevant docs. Sherborne also noted that several old email addresses Harry used (including one called “bazasales69@hotmail.com”) were no longer accessible.

“NGN’s tactical and sluggish approach to disclosure wholly undermines the deliberately sensational assertion that [the Duke of Sussex] has not properly carried out the disclosure exercise,” Sherborne wrote. “This is untrue.”

But Justice Fancourt was not swayed, saying the lack of documentation handed over by Harry so far was “rather remarkable” and “cause for concern.”

He added: “It seems to me inherently likely that matters would have been said which relate to the parts of Spare in which unlawful information gathering is discussed.”