Prince Harry Ordered To Explain Missing Memoir Messages

A London judge has ordered Prince Harry to explain how messages between the royal and the ghostwriter of his memoir Spare have gone missing.

In a hearing connected with the royal’s unlawful information-gathering lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid publisher News Group Newspapers (NGN) on Thursday, the court heard that requests for Harry’s messages with author JR Moehringer could not be fulfilled.

Justice Timothy Fancourt, presiding over the case said, per The Timesthat “a large number of potentially relevant documents” and messages between Harry and Moehringer “were destroyed sometime between 2021 and 2023.”

“The position is not transparently clear about what exactly happened and needs to be made so by a witness statement from the claimant himself explaining what happened,” he said.

The prince’s lawyer, David Sherborne, had told the court that his client and the author did not discuss unlawful information gathering in messages and that their exchanges had been made using the Signal messaging app that had since “wiped” then from the platform.

Newsweek approached representatives of Prince Harry via email for comment.

NGN had sought the messages as part of an extensive disclosure request to the prince’s legal team, which also included thousands of emails, WhatsApp and text messages between the royal and palace aides.

Harry alleges that NGN titles, which include The Sun newspaper and defunct News of the Worldengaged in illegal activity to obtain information about his private life, which was published between the 1990s and 2010s.

The publisher has previously denied any illegal activity took place at The Sunand sought to have the prince’s claims dismissed as they had been filed too late.

In Britain, a claimant has a six-year period between first becoming aware that they may have been the victim of unlawful information gathering and filing a lawsuit. Harry filed his lawsuit in 2019, with his legal team arguing that he had not been aware that he had a potential claim before 2013, thus placing him within the six-year expiration timeframe and able to proceed.

NGN’s legal team are seeking to identify evidence that the prince had sufficient knowledge that he may have been a victim to the alleged unlawful activity before the 2013 date, which could potentially have his case dismissed.

Previously, the publisher’s lawyers successfully argued that Harry had been aware he could have brought phone hacking allegations against the publisher before 2013, with this claim being dismissed by a judge last year. He was, however, permitted to continue to trial with claims that he had been the victim of blagging and other unlawful information-gathering techniques.

NGN had requested Harry’s communications with his ghostwriter to see whether he had discussed potential knowledge of unlawful information gathering and his media lawsuits with the author.

On Thursday, NGN’s lawyers accused Harry of “obfuscating” and attempting to “create an obstacle course” to them procuring potentially relevant evidence, despite the royal having reportedly provided over 11,000 documents and conducting a personal search for material at his California home, and also contacting senior royal household members to inquire about potential information they may hold.

Anthony Hudson KC, acting for NGN, suggested that the prince had “deliberately destroyed” evidence, per The Telegraph. Though Fancourt responded by saying: “We don’t know what has happened. It’s not at all clear.”

Fancourt raised concerns about the way Harry’s legal team handled the disclosure request, saying it was “not appropriate” that the prince should be conducting searches himself and ruled that a wider search for evidence should take place.

He also ordered the prince to make an interim payment of £60,000 ($76,000) towards NGN’s legal costs.

Harry’s case is set to go to trial in early 2025.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek‘s royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.

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