Prince Harry raises alarm over press & Govt relationship: Hacked Off comment

Prince Harry raises alarm over press & Government relationship: Hacked Off comment

Prince Harry today said: “Democracy fails when your press fails to scrutinise and hold the government accountable, and instead choose to get into bed with them so they can ensure the status quo.”

“If they’re supposedly policing society, who on earth is policing them, when even the government is scared of alienating them because position is power. It is incredibly worrying for the entire UK.”

He also alleged that roughly 140 articles published between 1996 and 2010 contained information gathered using unlawful methods.

A Hacked Off spokesperson said,

“Prince Harry alleges that stories written about him included sensitive information and were based on unlawfully obtained information, beginning when he was aged only ten years old, and continued throughout the period his mother died.

If these claims succeed, they will show that almost his entire life Prince Harry has been a target of relentless press intrusion, with unlawful behaviour allegedly continuing until as recently as 2016. He made frequent reference today to the impact on him, saying he began to doubt and mistrust those close to him because of the unlawful behaviour of newspapers.

On Harry’s comments on the state of the UK press,

“Every new allegation heaps further embarrassment on the Government, which argued in 2018 that the second part of the Leveson Inquiry into press illegality should be cancelled, largely on the basis that – they argued – the facts of the hacking scandal were now known.

“In fact, what we knew in 2018 was just the tip of the iceberg. The determination and courage of Prince Harry and other claimants and their legal teams is the only reason that we have learned so much more over the last five years.

Prince Harry is right to observe that the British press is effectively unaccountable. Until the Government introduces the Leveson system of independent press regulation complete with a compulsory system of arbitration to resolve cases of alleged illegality on a low-cost basis, they will continue to fail all of the victims of press abuse and deprive the public of access to justice.”

It is unsurprising that some politicians jump to defend the press in the wake of Harry’s comments, having so catastrophically failed to protect the public from a totally unregulated press.

“We will never get to the bottom of the hacking scandal without the judicial inquiry which the victims of press abuse, and the public, were promised. In the interests of justice and public trust in the press, the Government must give up on its five year campaign to suppress Leveson Part Two and re-establish it without further delay.”