Tom Bower: Harry must pay the price for his lack of judgement and vindictiveness

Royal biographer Tom Bower has said Prince Harry has got to “pay a price” for his lack of judgement and “vindictiveness” after his loss in the High Court.

Speaking on GB News he said: “He received a big punch by the judge, and now with a bloody nose, and of course he had a slap in the face…by not being allowed to stay in Buckingham Palace.

“So he is now on a tipping point, Harry, because having accepted the word of a liar, which was this document which claimed the bugging and burgling of him, which then was proved to be forged Harry has really gone into dark territory.

“His campaign against the media has now really ended any trust one can have in Harry’s judgment, and also in Meghan’s.

“He did have justification. The News of the World and Mirror Group did hack into his phones and ruined his relationship with Chelsy Davy and other people and made him paranoid.

“But he never had any [evidence] against the Mail, but Sherborne, his lawyers, and the Hacked Off group were absolutely determined, right from the very beginning, to get the Mail, that was their target.

“They hated the Mail because it’s right-wing, they hated the Mail because he told the truth so often about these posing celebrities who want to write their own narrative.

“And that’s the other thing, of course, about Harry. He wants to write his own narrative. He capitalised on his autobiography, invading the privacy of the King, the Queen, his brother, and everything else but doesn’t like it when people say, ‘Well, you’re a liar’.

“And he is a liar, as he was shown in this case.

“A lot of [the costs] will come from insurance, but the insurance didn’t go high enough.

“The lawyers, like David Sherborne, all were on contingency, so his side, they didn’t have the costs anymore. And they spent a fortune of the Mail’s money going through their archives looking for evidence, which, of course, they never found.

“The judge handled it brilliantly. He let Sherborne and the Hacked Off group hang themselves, constantly saying, ‘Where is the evidence?’ and they couldn’t produce it.

“But Harry shows remarkable bad judgment, because after all, he’s a grown man, he must have realised at some stage he was going to lose. And what was worse was, of course, his impugning of journalists on the Mail for lying…

“Harry actually went to see Doreen Lawrence, to persuade her to join this campaign. So he has a huge responsibility for having caused misery to innocent people, the journalists involved, who have spent years at having suffered it, and also Doreen Lawrence, who’s completely misguided.

“So he’s got to pay a price for not only his bad judgement but his vindictiveness.

“I think what the whole point of this trip was, and it’s all this media briefing: is he coming, is he not? with Meghan?

“Of course, it was all about coming to Britain, getting royal protection, having a pseudo royal tour, so they could resurrect their reputation as members of the British Royal Family, monetise themselves, go back to America and somehow rebuild the shattered reputation they’ve now got there.

“And that hasn’t worked out. In this case, it makes it even harder for them.”