Judge Ignores Harry's Lawyers, Issues Orders Directly to Him as 'Troubling Evidence' of Document Destruction Emerges
Prince Harry has some explaining to do, and a British judge has ordered him to do it himself.
During a hearing Thursday on the battle between the prince and News Group Newspapers over claims that the media group indulged in phone hacking to get information, Judge Timothy Fancourt was irked by the fact that key documents have gone missing.
Fancourt said “a large number of potentially relevant documents” and “confidential messages” between JR Moehringer, who ghostwrote the autobiography “Spare,” and the prince “were destroyed sometime between 2021 and 2023, well after this claim was under way,” according to the BBC.
Fancourt said that it was “inherently likely” that “matters would have been said” that are relevant to the case, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
Prince Harry has been ordered by a High Court judge to explain how messages between him and the ghostwriter of his memoir, Spare, came to be “destroyed”
Read more 🔗.https://t.co/otUl7pKOlP
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 27, 2024
But in court, Harry’s lawyers said messages on the Signal app have been deleted and email accounts used at the time have been closed.
That led Fancourt to give Harry a homework assignment.
“The position is not transparently clear about what happened and needs to be made so by way of a witness statement from the claimant himself – what happened to the messages between himself and his ghostwriter and whether any attempts were made to retrieve them,” he said, according to the U.K.’s Telegraph.
Judge orders Prince Harry to provide ‘wiped’ documentation:
‘I have seen troubling evidence that a large number of potentially relevant documents and confidential messages between the duke and the ghost writer of Spare were destroyed some time between 2021 and 2023, well after… pic.twitter.com/kxjydZPZjV
— Codey369 (@Codeym369) June 27, 2024
Fancourt said the lack of documents produced by the prince was “rather remarkable” and gave him “cause for concern”.
Anthony Hudson, the lawyer for the media group, said the incident was “another example of the obfuscation in relation [to] the claimant’s case.,” according to the Mail.
“We say it’s shocking and extraordinary that the claimant has deliberately destroyed …” he began.
Fancourt then interrupted to say, “Well we don’t know what has happened. It’s not at all clear.”
That book Spare is the undoing of Prince Harry.
We told him then, but he didn’t listen. pic.twitter.com/I4GtkiHlw6
— Queer Lips of Truth (@einstein_evans) June 27, 2024
David Sherborne, representing Harry admitted the “entire chat history was wiped” but said it was for a noble purpose.
“This was a highly necessary process, not to hide anything but to delete highly sensitive information about [Harry] and the royal family which, if leaked, would not only compromise his security but also be potentially damaging to the [duke] and his family,” he said.
Fancourt said it appeared to him that Harry, from California, was deciding what documents might be relevant, rather than the lawyers in the case.
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