Britain's Prince Harry was accused of wanting to “destroy the British monarchy” by former tabloid editor Piers Morgan in his latest verbal salvo against Harry.
Mr Morgan and the Sussexes have traded comments since Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, when the couple accused a royal of raising “concerns” about their son’s skin colour and the duchess spoke about her mental health issues.
In 2021, the broadcaster made headlines after leaving Good Morning Britain following an on-air clash with weather presenter Alex Beresford.
Mr Morgan’s colleague criticised him for “continuing to trash” Meghan the day after the ex-tabloid editor said he “didn’t believe a word” the duchess told Winfrey.
Before his departure, the duchess made a formal complaint to ITV bosses about the presenter whose comments sparked more than 50,000 complaints to Ofcom.
The latest clash has followed Harry’s partial victory in a High Court phone-hacking claim, when a judge ruled his phone was probably hacked “to a modest extent” by the publisher Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).
Mr Morgan said he had “zero knowledge” of an article about the duke published during his time as editor of the Daily Mirror, which may have involved unlawful information gathering.
In his judgement, Mr Justice Fancourt concluded “there can be no doubt” that editors of MGN’s titles knew about voicemail interception, but did not tell the company’s board or chief executive about it.
Harry said in a statement, read by his lawyer David Sherborne: “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.”
Mr Morgan hit back in his own statement, delivered on the doorstep of his home, saying he “never hacked a phone or told anyone else to hack a phone”, after the High Court judge accepted evidence that he knew journalists were involved in the practice.
He went on to say about Harry: “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.”
The broadcaster added: “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.”
