Prince Harry hits out at James Hewitt rumours and Piers Morgan ‘intimidation’

DHS has so far not responded to the request, prompting legal action from the foundation, in which they pointed to Prince Harry’s previous admissions of drug use, such as in his memoir Spare.

The department argued that an injunction to force DHS to expedite the request shouldn’t go ahead as the foundation hasn’t shown how they will suffer irreparable harm if the information isn’t shared.

Representing the government, Assistant US Attorney John Bardo argued on Tuesday that it wouldn’t make a difference when the request was handled, even if the response came a year from now.

The Heritage Foundation said the interest in Prince Harry’s immigration status would wain.

Rishi Sunak has refused to be drawn into a war of words with the Duke of Sussex over his claim the Government had hit “rock bottom”.

The Prime Minister told reporters travelling with him to Washington: “As you know, we have a long-standing convention that prime ministers don’t comment on members of the royal family.”

In addition to his various legal battles in the UK, a challenge concerning Prince Harry’s right to live in the United States is also set to get under way in Washinton DC on Tuesday, concerning revelations of illegal drug-taking in his memoir Spare.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative US think-tank, is bringing a case against the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appealing for the release of the duke’s visa application, submitted in advance of his relocation to California in January 2020.

If the duke’s application were to be published and reveal that his answers contradicted his later public revelations about his dalliances with drugs, the case would call into question the Biden administration’s handling of the visa application process, the organisation contends.

My colleague Joe Sommerlad has this explainer on the case:

Our political sketch writer Tom Peck has been at the High Court today, and notes that whatever state of breathless anticipation had been achieved by today’s blockbuster event did not last for long.

He writes: “Even with the most celebrated characters, courtroom dramas need a higher-octane plot than this one.

“Prince Harry is, almost certainly, one of more than a thousand victims of “unlawful information-gathering” by the tabloid press. But he is one of a vanishingly small number who are refusing to be paid off, and he was absolutely determined to have his day in court. This was it.

“But the problem is, it’s really all rather slow. The whole point of the cruelty of phone-hacking, as everybody even faintly interested in the subject knows by now, is that what might seem like a whole load of trivial tittle-tattle about the lives of famous people had profoundly damaging effects on its victims, who couldn’t work out how it was that photographers and reporters knew what they’d been doing – or worse, where to find them – and so stopped trusting even their closest friends and family.

“Its seriousness is not to be underestimated. But it does lead to this: many long hours of listening to Prince Harry being asked in great detail about, for example, who did or didn’t know this or that about a lunch in Pizza Express in Fulham in the late Nineties, or where he and his brother did or didn’t go on a rock-climbing holiday, or what happened on his gap year in Australia, or what the school nurse said to him when he broke his thumb at Eton.”

My colleague Gustaf Kilander reports from Washington:

A judge in DC federal court asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to decide within a week how it will handle a Freedom of Information request from the conservative Heritage Foundation for the immigration records of the Duke of Sussex.

DHS has so far not responded to the request, prompting legal action from the foundation.

Representing the government, Assistant US Attorney John Bardo argued on Tuesday that it wouldn’t make a difference when the request was handled, even if the response came a year from now.

Large parts of the hearing centred on the amount of media attention on Prince Harry and his supposed drug use which some legal experts say would have barred him from entering the US.

Mr Bardo argued that sufficient coverage from mainstream US media was required for a request to be expedited. He mentioned outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the TV networks.

Heritage lawyer Samuel Dewey meanwhile, argued in front of Judge Carl Nichols that DHS regulations simply say “media” without specifying where the outlets are based.

He went on to argue that today’s media is global, noting that The Daily Mail had 100 million page views in the US in the month of April.

Speaking to reporters outside the DC federal courthouse, Mr Dewey said that Prince Harry had foregone his right to privacy after his series of highly publicised interviews and Netflix documentary series.

Just hours after his five-hour court grilling in London, Prince Harry is facing another legal headache some 3,500 miles away – this time concerning his right to live in the United States.

The US government is set to be challenged in court today over its decision not to disclose the reasoning behind admitting the Duke of Sussex into the country, despite his admissions of illegal drug use.

Following Harry’s reference to taking cocaine, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms in his memoir Spare, the conservative Heritage Foundation think-tank questioned why he was allowed into the US in 2020.

After its Freedom of Information Act request was rejected, the Washington group brought a lawsuit against the Department for Homeland Security (DHS) – claiming it was of “immense public interest”.

Both parties are gearing up to argue the case in a federal court for the first time in Washington DC on Tuesday.

With A-list clients including Paul McCartney and Johnny Depp, barrister David Sherborne is no stranger to high-profile cases, my colleague Matt Mathers reports.

He has even represented the late Princess Diana – and now it’s Prince Harry’s turn, as the Duke of Sussex takes his long-running battle with the British press to the High Court.

A US-native, Mr Sherborne came to attention in the UK again for his role in the Levenson Inquiry, representing a host of celebrities who had their phones hacked by the now-defunct News of the World.

Mr Sherborne also represented Coleen Rooney in her “Wagatha Christie” libel action against Rebekah Vardy – a case that also attracted significant media attention.

Fellow lawyers who watched Mr Sherborne’s three-day cross-examination of Ms Vardy last year witnessed the best and worst of his style, reportedly describing it as a mixture of “undoubted charm”, “showboating” and “frequently p***ing off the judge”.

My colleagues Joe Middleton and Adam Forrest have this comprehensive report on today’s historic proceedings, which saw Prince Harry rail against Britain’s government and press as he became the first royal to testify in court since 1981, against the publisher of the Daily Mirror.

Abandoning the convention that royals do not comment on politics, the Duke of Sussex said both Rishi Sunak’s administration and the media were at “rock bottom” and that it was harming British democracy.

The royal claimed the government was “scared” of alienating British newspapers “because position is power”, and in a scathing broadside accused journalists of having “blood” staining their “typing fingers”.

It prompted some Tory MPs to call for Harry to renounce his title, arguing he had broken the “golden rule” of royals not getting involved in politics.

Harry alleges that 140 articles published between 1996 and 2010 contained information Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) gathered using unlawful methods. But lawyers for MGN suggested the royal’s claims of phone hacking are “in the realms of total speculation”.

You can read the full report here:

The Duke of Sussex’s historical appearance in a High Court witness box today revealed a host of claims about his life, the behaviour of the press and the impact of media scrutiny on him, as he sat through nearly five hours of questioning. Here are some of the key moments:

• Prince Harry said he felt “physically sick” over detective payments about Diana, stating that he was “shocked and appalled” by the number of payments made by MGN titles to private investigators, including eight in relation to his mother.
• Journalists’ alleged actions “affected every area” of duke’s life, he said, claiming that phone hacking and “other unlawful means” of obtaining private information about he and his associates not only created “a huge amount of distress but presented very real security concerns for not only me but also everyone around me”.
• Harry said he had ‘huge amount of paranoia’ after alleged press intrusion, and had lost friendships “entirely unnecessarily” due to the “paranoia” caused by alleged unlawful information-gathering.
• He accused the press having “blood” staining their “typing fingers”, with some responsible for causing pain, upset and death. He branded journalists the “mothership of online trolling”, saying: “People have died as a result and people will continue to kill themselves by suicide when they can’t see any other way out.”
• Calling on journalists “to expose those people in the media that have stolen or hijacked the privileges and powers of the press”, the royal claimed that the state of the UK’s press and government are both “at rock bottom”, claiming politicians are “scared to hold [the media] accountable”.
• The duke suggested that rumours his real father was Diana’s former lover James Hewitt were aimed at “ousting” him from the royal family, referring to a 2002 article in The People which reported a bid to steal a sample of the duke’s DNA to check his parentage.
• Harry alleged that former Mirror editor Piers Morgan had been intimidating him and his wife since he launched legal proceedings against the publisher, saying the presenter had subjected he and his wife “to a barrage of horrific personal attacks”.
• The duke was challenged in court over discrepancies between his autobiography Spare and his witness statement over whether he wanted to meet ex-royal butler Paul Burrell, whom he admitted branding a “two-faced shit”.
• Harry said he was “extremely worried” about being expelled from Eton after news articles about his use of illegal drugs.

During cross-examination today, Prince Harry claimed that sources in royal stories are sometimes “completely made up”.

Asked by barrister Andrew Green about whether a statement being put out about a possible meeting between Harry, Prince William and their mother’s former butler Paul Burrell meant that royal advisers appreciated it was a “matter in the public interest”, the duke replied: “No, I don’t believe so.”

The barrister then took him to another article in a different publication about the possible meeting, written by royal commentator Robert Jobson, who Mr Green referred to as being regarded as a “royal specialist”.

Taking exception to that description, the duke said: “He is not regarded as a specialist, no.”

Asked about Mr Jobson’s story coming from his sources, Harry went on to say: “I wouldn’t necessarily call them sources. I’m not exactly sure what his connections are but, based on what he has written, they may be imaginary sources.”

The duke said he had not closely followed the press reporting of the story at the time, having been “in the middle of the Australian bush at the time”, adding: “Considering what I was trying to do … get on with a gap year as a jackaroo, it wasn’t a priority.”

Asked further by Mr Green about Mr Jobson’s article, Harry said: “I would suggest based on the byline this whole article should be taken with a pinch of salt.”

In response to a further question from Mr Justice Fancourt about whether he meant sources in royal stories were “unreliable people” or that they did not exist, the duke replied: “From my experience, my lord, it differs.

“Sometimes the source is real and exists, and sometimes the source is completely made up.”