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Friends of the royal family have scoffed at Prince Harry’s characterization of an alleged $1 million-plus payment to Prince William as evidence that a “secret agreement” was constructed by the family with a major newspaper publisher and that Harry was kept in the dark over phone hacking claims, with one source questioning how the payout could be described as secret if Harry knew about it.
Another friend of the family said Harry’s suggestion that the family would have maliciously conspired against Harry or sought to protect Queen Camilla at his expense was “hurtful and mistaken.”
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Meanwhile a report in the Daily Telegraph, citing royal sources, suggested Harry could have secured a payout similar to that given to Prince William by News Group Newspapers (NGN), but chose to “go rogue.”
It appears that the palace is pushing back at Harry’s interpretation of events surrounding the long-running phone hacking scandal, which has seen a public enquiry in the U.K and reporters and private investigators jailed for illegally tapping into voicemails. Harry outlined his position in a 31-page witness statement submitted this week as part of his case against NGN, the publishers of the Sun and the Times.
Harry alleges that the Sun published stories based on hacked voicemails. NGN has always denied such activity took place at the Sun, insisting it was restricted to the now-shuttered Sunday newspaper, News of the World.
The Murdoch family-owned newspaper group is also arguing that Harry has anyway waited too long to bring a claim against them, but Harry says the existence of the “secret agreement” between the royals and NGN was part of what prevented him acting in a more timely manner.
In his witness statement, however, to much general surprise, he also took the incendiary step of revealing details of a “very large” phone hacking settlement William got from NGN in 2020, which subsequent reports have said was worth over a million dollars.
In one critical paragraph, Harry said: “My brother appeared to know an awful lot more than I did on the subject of phone hacking although he did not tell me if that was the case. However, NGN still settled his claim for a huge sum of money in 2020 without subjecting him to a similar strike out application, without any of the public being told, and seemingly with some favorable deal in return for him going ‘quietly’ so to speak. This goes to prove the existence of this secret agreement between the institution and senior executives at NGN—if it wasn’t in place then why on earth did William wait until 2019 to bring his claim in circumstances where our two private secretaries brought and settled claims back in 2012, and where he knew far more about the matter back then than I did.”
But a friend of William’s has now questioned Harry’s version of events, telling The Daily Beast: “It hardly seems like much of a secret if Harry knew about it.”
The friend said they did not know if the report that Harry was offered the opportunity to try and get a similar deal but had “gone rogue” was accurate.
But media lawyer Mark Stephens, a partner at leading law firm Howard Kennedy, told The Daily Beast that just because Harry knew about the deal did not mean it couldn’t be described as “secret”.
“Secrets are never entirely secret—there are of course always some people who know. What is more important is whether there was an agreement at all, and the palace now seems to be conceding that yes, some deal or settlement exists. That’s the important point.”
Harry’s father and stepmother also came in for multiple bashings in his witness statement.
Harry claimed in one section, for example, that he wanted to get a public apology from NGN but that his father’s office blocked his “every move” and successfully put pressure on the queen to abandon his cause.
Harry said that his father was afraid of a re-run of the crisis that engulfed the family when a phone call of Charles fantasizing of a life as Camilla’s tampon was made public in 1993, saying: “The institution was incredibly nervous about this and wanted to avoid at all costs the sort of reputational damage that it had suffered in 1993 when the Sun and another tabloid had unlawfully obtained and published details of an intimate telephone conversation that took place between my father and step-mother in 1989, while he was still married to my mother.”
Harry added: “With hindsight, I now understand why staff at Clarence House were being so unhelpful and were seemingly blocking our every move, as they had a specific long term strategy to keep the media (including NGN) onside in order to smooth the way for my stepmother (and father) to be accepted by the British public as Queen Consort (and King respectively) when the time came, and anything that might upset the applecart in this regard (including the suggestion of resolution of our phone hacking claims) was to be avoided at all costs.”
A long standing friend of the king and queen told The Daily Beast: “Dragging Camilla into it is hurtful and mistaken.”
Asked if Camilla and Charles were upset by the allegations made by Harry, which echoed remarks in his book, Spare, in which he described Camilla as “dangerous” and prepared to “sacrifice” him, the friend said, “They are fully focused on the coronation in just a few days’ time. They won’t be distracted.”
The Telegraph said their source had been “involved in the discussions at the time” and that both Harry and William were “kept fully in the loop of all negotiations,” and said the focus was getting an “institutional resolution” on behalf of everyone affected, adding: “This was not about individuals.”
There is, however, little doubt that the last thing the royals would want to see is a full blown court case, which could take place early next year.
While it seems highly possible that Harry will get his day(s) in court, the judge did highlight one apparent contradiction in Harry’s argument, saying: “Another thing that is troubling me is what appears to me to be a factual inconsistency in the current pleaded case about the way the Duke of Sussex did not have the knowledge before 2019 to bring a claim. Your proposed amendment seems to suggest that he would have brought a claim in 2012 except for the secret agreement.”
David Sherborne, Harry’s attorney, replied that before 2012 Harry had thought that only one voicemail, left for him by his brother, had been intercepted.
Charles, William and Harry’s offices all declined to comment.
