Harry vs. Piers Morgan: How the prince is using phone-hacking case to fight longtime enemy

Piers Morgan’s career has rebounded in surprising ways after he called Meghan Markle a liar in 2021, but his oft-embattled reputation could face its most serious challenge yet from Prince Harry, as the renegade royal pursues his phone-hacking lawsuit in London’s High Court in the coming weeks.

The trial, which opened this week, has emerged as “a showdown” between Harry and Morgan, the Duke of Sussex’s longtime enemy, with the California-based royal using his case against Mirror Group Newspapers as a way to go after the bombastic journalist, The Guardian reported. The case centers on Harry’s allegations that he, his family and friends were the victims of phone hacking and other forms of illegal information gathering by the Daily Mirror when Morgan edited the tabloid newspaper.

From Harry’s attorneys, the court heard claims this week that Morgan “lies at the heart” of illegal reporting practices at the Mirror Group Newspapers, which also includes the Sunday Mirror and People.

In one startling situation the court heard, Morgan was the editor in 1999 when the Daily Mirror hired private investigators to gain financial information from the private bank account of Prince Michael of Kent, The Guardian also reported. Harry’s side claims that the investigators posed as the prince’s accountants so that they could phone the bank and illegally “blag” his account information.

That information became the basis for a Daily Mirror story, Harry’s attorneys said, according to The Guardian. The Daily Mirror reported that the late Queen Elizabeth II’s cousin was millions of pounds in debt and had an unauthorized $274,000 overdraft at the bank.

When Prince Michael’s lawyers complained to Morgan that the financial records must have been obtained illegally, Morgan dismissed their “poor and thinly disguised threat” and insisted the information had come from an “impeccable source,” the court was told this week, according to The Guardian. But the Mirror’s publisher later settled a legal claim from Prince Michael and issued an apology to him.

David Sherborne, the attorney representing Harry and other high-profile figures others suing the Daily Mirror, said the incident points to a culture of widespread illegality and cover-ups in the company, The Guardian reported. Sherborne said it was “inconceivable” that the company’s legal department and Morgan didn’t know how the Prince Michael story was reported.

“He was a very hands-on editor,” Sherborne also said. “We have the direct involvement of Mr. Morgan in a number of these incidents and his knowledge of voicemail interception.”

The trial has clearly put Morgan on the defensive, as he has long denied hacking anyone’s phone — which involves intercepting mobile phone messages — or directing others to do so. Reporters who hacked into phones are “lazy journalists being lazy.”

In a BBC interview recorded before the trial, Morgan said,  “I’ve never hacked a phone. I’ve never told anybody to hack a phone.”

More combatively, Morgan said he would not apologize to Harry over the phone-hacking allegations. In an interview with ITV this week, Morgan referred to Harry sharing behind-the-scenes stories about royal life in his memoir “Spare” and in interviews over the past several years. Morgan suggested that the duke should apologize to the royal family “for his disgraceful invasion of privacy.”

“All I am going to say is I am 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,” Morgan said. He cheekily posted an image from the “South Park” episode that lambasted Harry and Meghan over the concerns about privacy.

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— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 10, 2023

Morgan was the editor of the Daily Mirror from 1995 to 2004, but resigned over the newspaper’s publication of pictures — later found to be fake — of British soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees. Morgan soon transitioned into TV broadcasting, including an unsuccessful short-lived stint replacing Larry King on CNN.

Morgan enjoyed a high-profile gig, co-hosting “Good Morning Britain” for six years. But he left the show in March 2021 over his controversial reaction to Harry and Meghan’s Oprah Winfrey interview. He essentially branded the Duchess of Sussex a liar by declaring he “didn’t believe a word” she said, including when she talked about her suicidal thoughts after marrying into the royal family and other claims she made about royal life.

Morgan, though, didn’t stay silent and soon landed a job as the host of his own show, “Piers Morgan Uncensored” on TalkTV, a satellite and cable channel owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK company. Morgan also continued to write columns for different publications, some of which offered scathing commentary about Harry and Meghan and his belief that they are hypocritical and inauthentic.

With regard to Harry’s case against the Daily Mirror, Morgan told the BBC that he thought phone hacking was completely wrong. Reporters who hacked into phones are “lazy journalists being lazy,” he said.

When asked if it stretched credulity that, as a hands-on editor he didn’t know what was going on, Morgan told the BBC: “I didn’t. So I don’t care whether it stretches people’s credulity, or not.” He also said there was no evidence that he knew about other editors or reporters alleged illegal practices.

The Guardian also reported on multiple instances when Morgan talked about his experience with phone hacking or knowledge of how it works. He wrote in the Daily Mail in 2006 that he once listened in on a mobile-phone voicemail left by Paul McCartney to Heather Mills, whom the Beatle married in 2002. In Morgan’s own 2005 book, “The Insider,” he shared what he knew about how phone hacking worked in 2001.

“Someone suggested today that people might be listening to my mobile phone messages,” Morgan wrote. Apparently if you don’t change the standard security code that every phone comes with, then anyone can call your number and, if you don’t answer, tap in the standard four-digit code to hear all your messages. … It makes me wonder how many public figures and celebrities are aware of this little trick.”

Harry’s case against the Daily Mirror is the first of his three phone-hacking cases against UK newspapers that is going to trial, The Guardian reported. The duke is expected to testify, becoming the first senior member of the royal family to testify in a court case since the 19th century. He also also is waiting to hear whether he can go to trial on two separate cases against the parent companies of the Sun and Daily Mail.

The Mirror News Group has acknowledged that phone hacking took place at its newspapers and has paid out tens of millions of pounds to victims, The Guardian said. The publisher insists that many of the articles Harry believes were the result of phone hacking or other illegal activity actually were based on legal reporting methods. The publisher said it received information from the prince’s acquaintances, who were selling him out, or from royal courtiers who went behind Harry’s back. The Mirror newspapers also repurposed information that was already published in other newspapers.