Prince Harry is back in the witness box for a second day of cross examination as he aims to prove a UK ?tabloid used unlawful information gathering methods.
The Duke of Sussex arrived at London's High Court on Wednesday just before 10am (6.50pm AEST), waving at the waiting throng of cameras, to continue his grilling from Mirror Group Newspapers attorney Andrew Green? KC.
Harry is accusing the publisher of the Daily Mirror of using unlawful techniques on an "industrial scale" to score front-page scoops on his life.
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In reference to articles from 2007 about his relationship with Chelsy Davy, the Duke of Sussex ?questioned how the newspapers knew of their breakup before they told anyone.
"I'm not entirely sure how anyone would have known we had broken up because again, we didn't talk about this regularly," he told the court.
While some articles about the couple's romance being in crisis quoted "palace sources" for their information, Harry said he "never discussed with the palace any details about my relationship with my girlfriend".
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"Everything that is attributed to a palace source I believe is obtained unlawfully because I never spoke to anyone about my relationship with my girlfriend because that was private," he said.
"The suspicious part of it is attributing quotes to a palace source that either doesn't exist or certainly doesn't have any information about me or my girlfriend," he added, suggesting it was information obtained unlawfully by intercepting voicemails.
"So we are in the land of total speculation about whether this was voicemail interception," Green said.
"Not at all, I don't agree," Harry responded.
Green in his cross examination ?also pointed out to the royal that these articles from 2007 came after journalists from News of the World were prosecuted over phone hacking in 2006.
The lawyer asked Harry why ?journalists would take the risk of hacking the phones of he or his brother, Prince William, in light of this.
"I believe the risk is worth the reward for them," Harry said.
"I believe phone hacking was on an industrial scale across three of the papers."
Green then pressed: "If the court was to found you were never hacked by an MGN journalist would you be relieved or disappointed?"
"I would feel an injustice," Harry replied.
The lawyer asked: "[so] you want to have been phone hacked?"
"No-one wants to have been phone hacked," Harry replied.
On Tuesday, Prince Harry became the first senior member of the British royal family to testify in over a century. His ancestor, the future King Edward VII, appeared as a witness in a trial over a gambling scandal in 1891.?
The 38-year-old is suing the publisher of the Daily Mirror over 33 articles published between 1996 and 2011 that he says were based on phone hacking or other illegal snooping methods.
Harry faced over five hours of questioning yesterday but was forced almost immediately to acknowledge that he wasn't certain he read the 33 specific articles about him when they were published.
"Is it realistic, when you have been the subject of so much press intrusion by so many press, both domestic and international, to attribute specific distress to a particular article from 20 years ago, which you may not have seen at the time?" Green asked.
When pressed to be specific about what information had been illegally harvested, Harry repeatedly told the lawyer that the source of information in stories was "highly suspicious" or that he should ask the reporter who wrote the article.
He said some of the journalists had been known for hacking or that there were invoices to third parties, including private investigators known for snooping, around the time of the articles. He suggested other records had been destroyed.
Time and again, as Green laid out evidence to the contrary and what was described by Harry as a nefarious act had a more innocent explanation.
Green asked Harry to identify what evidence he had of phone hacking in specific articles, and Harry repeatedly said he'd have to ask that question of the journalist who wrote it. He continually insisted that the manner in which information had been obtained was highly or incredibly suspicious.
He said some of the journalists had been known for hacking or that there were invoices to third parties, including private investigators known for snooping, around the time of the articles.
However, the burden of proof lies on the 38-year-old royal.
The stories in question represent a fragment of decades of press coverage that Harry says has warped his life and those of his friends and loved ones.
In his 55-page witness statement, Harry claimed that during his adolescence and young adulthood, tabloids cast him in a role - "the 'thicko,' the 'cheat,' the 'underage drinker,' the 'irresponsible drug taker.'"
"I ended up feeling as though I was playing up to a lot of the headlines and stereotypes that they wanted to pin on me mainly because I thought that, if they are printing this rubbish about me and people were believing it, I may as well 'do the crime,' so to speak," Harry said. "It was a downward spiral, whereby the tabloids would constantly try and coax me, a 'damaged' young man, into doing something stupid that would make a good story and sell lots of newspapers."
Harry alleged that journalists' behaviour was ruinous to his mental health, spurring "bouts of depression and paranoia".
"I now realise that my acute paranoia of being constantly under surveillance was not misplaced after all," he said.
Harry's fury at the UK press runs through his memoir, Spare. He blames paparazzi for causing the car crash that killed his mother, and said intrusion by the UK press, including allegedly racist articles, led him and his wife, Meghan, to flee to the US in 2020 and leave royal life behind.
The Duke of Sussex and three other claimants representing dozens of celebrities are suing MGN, accusing its titles of obtaining private information by phone hacking and through other illicit means, including private investigators, between 1991 and 2011.
The trial started on May 10, and is expected to last seven weeks.
MGN is contesting most of the allegations, arguing in its court filings that some claims have been brought too late and that in all four cases there is insufficient evidence of phone hacking.
Hacking - the practice of guessing or using default security codes to listen to celebrities' cellphone voice messages - was widespread at British tabloids in the early years of this century.
It became an existential crisis for the industry after the revelation in 2011 that the News of the World had hacked the phone of a slain 13-year-old girl.
Owner Rupert Murdoch shut down the paper and several of his executives faced criminal trials.
Mirror Group has paid more than £100 million ($186 million) to settle hundreds of unlawful information-gathering claims, and printed an apology to phone hacking victims in 2015.
But the newspaper denies or has not admitted any of Harry's claims, which relate to 33 published articles.
Mirror Group's attorney, Andrew Green, said there was "simply no evidence capable of supporting the finding that the Duke of Sussex was hacked, let alone on a habitual basis."
- Reported with Associated Press and CNN?.
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