Piers Morgan ridiculed Prince Harry after questions about Morgan’s involvement in phone hacking surfaced as part of a High Court legal battle fought by Harry and others. It was alleged that Morgan “must have known” about illegal voicemail interception on the first day of a trial against The Daily Mirror, the British tabloid newspaper Morgan edited for almost a decade. In his time as editor of the Mirror from 1995 to 2004, Morgan has continuously denied any knowledge of phone hacking, reported Deadline. As a result of the trial, the debate over phone hacking in the UK has re-ignited more than a decade after the News of the World was shut down under Rupert Murdoch amid revelations regarding illegal activity conducted by the paper. In response to the allegations, Morgan posted a screenshot from an episode of South Park where characters resembling Harry and Meghan Markle set out on a “worldwide privacy tour.”
Later, he told ITV News that Harry should apologize for invading his family’s privacy. “I’m not going to take lectures on privacy invasion from Prince Harry, somebody who has spent the last three years ruthlessly and cynically invading the Royal family’s privacy for vast commercial gain and told a pack of lies about them,” he said, per Deadline. “So I suggest he gets out of court and apologizes to his family for the disgraceful invasion of privacy that he’s been perpetrating.”
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The High Court heard that Morgan, a presenter for Murdoch’s TalkTV and Fox News, openly discussed phone hacking with colleagues at Mirror Group Newspapers premises, according to The Guardian. During the trial, former Mirror political editor David Seymour described how Morgan played a Paul McCartney voicemail to reporters, in which the Beatles star sang “And I Love Her” to patch up his relationship with his then-girlfriend Heather Mills. Also, Omid Scobie, a journalist with close ties to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, claimed to have overheard Morgan discuss obtaining information from voicemails at the Mirror in 2002.
Previously, Mirror Group Newspapers admitted that journalists had been involved in phone hacking and paid out £100M ($126M) in settlements and legal costs to victims, The Guardian reported. Senior executives at the newspaper group have denied being aware of the unlawful activity. While the company denies hacking Harry’s phone, it apologized for illegally collecting evidence about him in 2004 at a nightclub using a private investigator. According to Harry’s witness statement, illegal activities at Mirror Group Newspapers contributed to his “huge distress” and “paranoia.” Harry will testify during the trial in June, reported BBC journalist Katie Razzall.
