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Prince Harry is angry — and his latest legal move is a serious threat to Rupert Murdoch and former News of the World editor Piers Morgan. Did they pay a police officer for a sensational story about his mother, Princess Diana?
Rupert Murdoch has no love for the British royal family.
And Prince Harry hates Murdoch — he’s declared war on the press baron’s British empire.
In his autobiography Spare Prince Harry talks about the relentless pursuit of paparazzi throughout his life, especially two that he calls Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber.
Many of their pictures ended up in Murdoch papers:
They’d run alongside me, taunt me … Many paps wanted a reaction, a tussle, but what Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber seemed to want was a fight to the death.
They always seemed to know where he was. He discussed this with his brother William: “How do they know? How do they always know?”
Harry adds:
It was around this time that I began to think Murdoch was evil. No, strike that. I began to know that he was. First hand.
Once you’ve been chased by someone’s henchmen through the streets of a busy modern city you lose all doubt about where they stand on the Great Moral Continuum.
… I didn’t care for Murdoch’s politics, which were just to the right of the Taliban’s.
I couldn’t think of a single human being … who’d done more damage to our collective sense of reality. But what really sickened and frightened me … was Murdoch’s ever expanding circle of flunkeys: young, broken, desperate men willing to do whatever was necessary to earn one of his Grinchy smiles.
And at the centre of that circle … were these two mopes, the Tweedles.
Last month the legal team representing Harry in his misuse of private information action against Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, applied for permission to include articles from 1994 and 1995.
Up until now the court has only allowed articles published in 1996 and after.
One of the most significant of the new articles is a 1994 News of the World exclusive revealing the contents of a confidential Scotland Yard report confirming that Princess Diana had made anonymous phone calls to a friend.
At the time the paper’s editor was Piers Morgan and Rupert Murdoch was personally involved.
The story is important because the evidence suggests the report was unlawfully sold to the News of the World by a police officer.
If Harry is successful in persuading the court to allow this article to be included in the case, it may lead to new information revealing the name of the officer involved and the News of the World staff who authorised payment.
Even though the events are now nearly two decades old, there is no statute of limitations in relation to criminal offences.
It was a Press Gang article in 2014 that first drew serious attention to the story. This was Whodunnit …? — the first of a long series about the career of Piers Morgan called “A Pretty Despicable Man.”
What follows is an updated summary of this article, including new material.
BATTLE ROYAL
In late 1993 the London art dealer, Oliver Hoare, a close friend of both Prince Charles and Princess Diana, reported a series of anonymous phone calls.
By January 1994 a police investigation discovered these calls were coming from numbers connected to Diana. The case was passed to Robert Marsh, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Royal Protection Squad.
Marsh’s wife Sandy Henney, a former Scotland Yard press officer, was assistant press secretary to Prince Charles.
Once he discovered that Diana was the source of the calls, Oliver Hoare declined to take the matter any further. The royal family were informed and the calls ceased.
All this took place in private. It was six months before the affair became public.
At the time, Charles and Diana were locked in an intense public relations battle in the wake of their separation.
In June 1994 Charles was interviewed on television by Jonathan Dimbleby. He admitted adultery.
In July Daily Express crime reporter John Twomey learnt about the anonymous calls and was preparing to splash the story.
The piece was spiked, apparently on the orders of Express chairman Sir David Stevens, a close friend of Princess Diana.
Almost immediately News of the World crime reporter Gary Jones got hold of the story. The detailed contents of the police investigation were read out to reporters.
Piers Morgan, the editor, ran the story as a “world exclusive”.
The day after the paper’s revelations, Princess Diana told the Daily Mail the story was false.
This sent Piers Morgan into a panic. In his memoirs The Insider he wrote that he couldn’t reveal that the paper’s story was correct “… without potentially exposing our source …”
He added:
And what if the report is a forgery?
I felt sick to the pit of my stomach.
Almost immediately Rupert Murdoch was on the phone:
Hi Piers, I can’t really talk for long but I just wanted you to know that your story is one hundred per cent bang on.
Can’t tell you how I know, but I just know.
The next day, the focus switched to the source of the News of the World story. Morgan wrote:
Everyone seemed to be blaming the police so I issued a statement saying it was categorically not a serving police officer, which is perfectly true.
Press reports suggested that at least a dozen officers had access to the report.
Met Commissioner Paul Condon ordered an internal probe into the leak but nothing was ever made public about the results.
Oliver Hoare, who died in 2018, spoke to Press Gang in 2014 on an off-the-record basis.
He said he was told that there was only one copy of the report and that it was locked in a safe when not in use.
BENT COPPERS
A month after the News of the World article, the Daily Mirror reported that Diana claimed the police report had been leaked to draw attention to her friendship with Oliver Hoare:
… humiliation heaped on the princess would counter any embarrassing revelations about Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles which might surface in a new book by Andrew Morton.
It was also clear she believed she was the subject of unlawful newsgathering:
Even when no one knows where I am going in my car there are people waiting for me at the other end.
In October 1994 she voiced these fears to Scotland Yard’s deputy assistant commissioner, David Meynell, who was in charge of royal protection.
Prince Harry, however, does not believe palace officials leaked the anonymous calls report to the News of the World.
In his recent application to include the article in his case, he says it “was based upon a police report that was unlawfully obtained” by private eyes.
They acted as brokers between the paper and the police source.
Allegations about bribing police officers have long been a feature of the unlawful news gathering scandal at the News of the World.
In March 2003 Rebekah Brooks — then Sun editor but previously features editor at the News of the World when the paper ran with the Princess Diana story — gave evidence before the Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport select committee.
Chris Bryant MP asked her if the Sun and the News of the World ever paid the police for information.
She replied:
We have paid the police for information in the past.
Two years later, in October 2005, another News of the World reporter — Mazher “Fake Sheik” Mahmood — admitted his involvement with corrupt detectives.
In a police interview he said:
I’ve got bent police officers that are witnesses that are informants.
Ends
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