Day three. Part two.
And this is where the room changes.
Prince Harry tells the court that through the course of this case, his life hasn’t got better it’s got worse. He says all he and the other claimants have ever wanted is one thing, an apology, and accountability.
Not money. Not revenge.
But instead, he’s had to relive everything publicly all over again.
He tells the court it’s awful being forced to give evidence like this. Dragging up memories he’s spent years trying to live with. Then he says the hardest part. Sitting there in the witness box, under questioning, he says the Mail’s publisher “made my wife’s life an absolute misery.”
And this is the moment that breaks him. He tears up. His voice falters. He struggles to finish the sentence. That’s it. That’s the end of his evidence. He bows.
And he leaves the court. Earlier, Harry explained what this process is actually doing to him.
He tells the judge that hearing these stories again is traumatic. Not uncomfortable. Not awkward. Traumatic. A recurring experience that takes him straight back. He says he has never believed his life was “open season” something to be bought, sold, and commercialised. And he becomes visibly passionate.
Since he was a teenager, he says, every part of his private life was mined for profit.
Phone calls listened to. Flights blagged. Movements tracked. All so journalists could stay one step ahead of each other.
And now, sitting there, listening to the defence argue that he has no right to privacy at all he calls it “disgusting.”
He also directly rejects claims made in court that he shared private information with Mail journalists.
When it’s suggested he was close to certain reporters, Harry is clear, that is not true. Private conversations, voicemails, calls he says that kind of information is only ever shared one-to-one, not with journalists.
When asked how reporters got information instead, he explains it plainly, Blagging.
Pretending to be someone else. Getting access to places they shouldn’t have been. In his written statement, Harry goes further. He accuses Mail journalists of threatening his personal security and making his early relationships impossible.
He singles out a 2006 Daily Mail article with a crude headline and an explicit reference to a private phone call between him and his brother.
He remembers the reporter involved as a young journalist trying to make a name for herself using his private life without shame.
He explains how once one girlfriend’s name was printed, her life changed instantly.
Privacy evaporated. Normal life over.
And then comes one of the most chilling admissions. Harry explains why he didn’t challenge the Mail sooner. Because he believed them.
At the Leveson Inquiry, Mail executives denied phone hacking.
And Harry says he accepted that not because he knew it was true, but because he was afraid. Afraid of retaliation. Afraid of what would happen if he pushed back.
He describes the Mail’s attitude as essentially, If you take us on, we will destroy your life.
So people stayed silent. Until now.
This wasn’t theatre. This wasn’t drama.
This was a man explaining in real time what it costs to stand up to power when you’ve been trained your whole life not to complain.
And when he says they made his wife’s life a misery that’s not rhetoric.
That’s the reason he’s there.