LONDON (AP) — A lawyer for the publisher of The Sun tabloid accused Prince Harry on Thursday of engaging in “shocking” and “extraordinary” obstruction by destroying evidence he sought for the prince’s lawsuit alleging violations of his privacy and espionage.
Lawyer Anthony Hudson said in High Court that the Duke of Sussex had deliberately destroyed text messages from the ghostwriter of his popular memoir “Spare.”
A lawyer for Enrique said News Group Newspapers was engaging in a “classic fishing expedition” by searching for documents they should have tried to get their hands on much sooner for a trial scheduled for January.
“NGN’s tactical and slow approach to disclosure completely undermines the deliberately sensational claim that the plaintiff (Enrique) has not properly carried out the disclosure exercise,” his lawyer, David Sherborne, said in court papers. “This is false. In fact, the plaintiff has already made it clear that he has carried out exhaustive searches, going beyond his obligations.”
Hudson said Harry had created an “obstacle course” to obtain the documents he sought from his former lawyer and staff when Harry was a working member of the royal family.
“If the plaintiff wanted his documents from his former lawyers or the royal household… he would have gotten them,” Hudson said.
The hearing is the latest in Harry’s battles against Britain’s biggest tabloids over alleged phone hacking and hiring private investigators to use illegal measures to obtain information about him.
Enrique is one of dozens of plaintiffs, including actor Hugh Grant, who allege that between 1994 and 2016, News Group journalists violated their privacy through widespread illegal activities that included intercepting voicemails, phone tapping, car tapping, and using deception to access confidential information.
The dispute arose from a phone-hacking scandal that broke at NGN’s News of the World in 2011.
The judge in the case recently ruled that Enrique cannot expand his lawsuit to add allegations that Rupert Murdoch, who was CEO of the company that included NGN, was part of an effort to conceal and destroy evidence of illegal activities.
NGN issued an unreserved apology in 2011 to victims of voicemail interception by News of the World, which closed its doors after the scandal. NGN said it has resolved 1,300 complaints about its newspapers, although The Sun has never accepted responsibility.
