Piers Morgan has claimed Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are on a mission to “destroy the British monarchy”.
His latest war of words against the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has come after Harry was awarded damages in his phone hacking trial against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).
On Friday, a High Court judge ruled he was a victim of “modest” phone-hacking and other unlawful information gathering by journalists at MGN.
The Duke of Sussex became the first senior royal to appear as a witness in court for 130 years at the trial in June.
The Prince claimed he was targeted by MGN for 15 years from 1996, and that more than 140 stories which appeared in its papers were the result of unlawful information gathering, however the trial only considered 33 of these.
In his ruling, Mr Justice Fancourt found that 15 out of 33 articles were the product of hacking from the Duke of Sussex’s mobile phone or the product of unlawful information gathering.
As a result, Prince Harry was awarded £140,600 in damages.
In a statement, read by his lawyer David Sherborne, the Duke said: “The court had found that the Mirror Group’s principle board directors, their legal department, senior executives, and editors such as Piers Morgan, clearly knew about or were involved in these illegal activities.
“Between them they even went as far as lying under oath to Parliament during the Leveson Inquiry, to the stock exchange, and to us all ever since.
“The journey to justice can be a slow and painful one, and since bringing my claim almost five years ago, defamatory stories and intimidating tactics have been deployed against me at my family’s expense.
“And so, as I too have learned through this process, patience is in fact a virtue especially in the face of vendetta journalism.”
In response to the ruling, Piers, who was the Daily Mirror’s editor between 1995 and 2004, claimed he had “zero knowledge” of an article about Harry published during his time as editor which may have involved unlawful information gathering.
In his own statement, delivered on the doorstep of his home, Piers insisted he “never hacked a phone or told anyone else to hack a phone”.
Speaking about Harry, the former GMB host continued: “He talked today about the appalling behaviour of the press but this is a guy who’s repeatedly trashed his family in public for hundreds of millions of dollars, even as two of its most senior and respected members were dying – his grandparents.
“He also says he’s on a mission to reform the media, when it’s become clear his real mission, along with his wife, is to destroy the British monarchy.”
My full statement re Prince Harry/Daily Mirror:
pic.twitter.com/X5dZDLmcXg— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) December 15, 2023
Prince Harry and about 100 other claimants, including a host of famous faces, have sought legal action against MGN over allegations of phone-hacking and unlawful information gathering between 1991 and 2011.
The Duke of Sussex was selected as one of four test cases for the trial.
In court documents released at the beginning of the trial, MGN admitted that there was “some evidence of the instruction of third parties to engage in other types of UIG [unlawful information gathering] in respect of each of the claimants”.
The publisher said it “warrants compensation,” adding: “MGN unreservedly apologises for all such instances of UIG, and assures the claimants that such conduct will never be repeated.”
