Prince Harry’s witness statement contained an error regarding his fatherKing Charles' royal title.
The Duke of Sussex, 38, stepped out on Tuesday andtook the witness standin a London court to testify against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) over alleged unlawful information gathering. This made Harry the first prominent member of the British royal family to give evidence in court in 130 years.
But in the witness statement, Harry’s father is incorrectly referred to as “HRH King Charles III,” with “HRH” standing for “His Royal Highness.” When Charles became monarch upon the death of Queen Elizabeth in September, the “His Royal Highness” title changed to “His Majesty.”
Prince Harry.Leon Neal/Getty Images
Leon Neal/Getty Images
During the “relevant period” referred to in the trial, spanning from 1996 and 2010, Charles was not yet the King. Instead, his title was “His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales.”
Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage
Neil Mockford/GC Images
Prince Harry said in the witness statement that throughout his life, “tabloids would routinely publish articles about me that were often wrong but interspersed with snippets of truth, which I now think were most likely gleaned from voicemail interception and/or unlawful information gathering.”
In the witness statement, the Duke of Sussex detailed unusual phone activity, including listening to voicemails for the first time that didn’t register on the phone as new messages. He said in the witness statement, “I wouldn’t go into my voicemail unless the little envelope symbol flashed up on my phone signaling to me that I had a new message. Sometimes this symbol would vanish before I had a chance to listen to the voicemail.”
Prince Harrydid not appear in court on Monday, the day after his andMeghan Markle’s daughterPrincess Lilibet’s second birthday. His attorney David Sherborne told the court that Harry was not available to give evidence after traveling from California on Sunday night.
Over 100 people are suing MGN for alleged illegal activity between 1991 and 2022, and Prince Harry is one of four representative claimants whose cases were selected for trial. The trial started on May 10 and is expected to last seven weeks.
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Prince Harryreceived an apologyfrom MGN at the start of the trial. “MGN unreservedly apologises for all such instances of UIG, and assures the claimants that such conduct will never be repeated,” the apology read in full.
source: people.com
