Last month, Prince Harry settled the rest of his hacking claims with the Mirror Group, after he won a major hacking victory late last year. The settlement was, I believe, the completion of Harry’s case against the Mirror specifically for their years of hacking and blagging about him. Harry still has several outstanding cases against other outlets, including News UK’s The Sun and the now-shuttered News of the World. News Group Newspapers is Rupert Murdoch’s British media arm, and as many know, the Murdoch-owned media was up to their eyeballs in criminality, hacking and more. Well, Harry’s lawyer David Sherbourne just made some “explosive new allegations.”

Prince Harry’s lawyer leveled explosive new allegations Wednesday that Rupert Murdoch was aware of cover-ups at his British tabloids that used unlawful techniques to spy on the Duke of Sussex and others. Attorney David Sherborne said Murdoch was among the executives who were aware that public statements made about phone hacking and other unlawful information gathering at News Group Newspapers were untrue.

Harry and other claimants, including actor Hugh Grant, sought during the first of a three-day hearing in the High Court to amend their lawsuit against the publisher to include allegations that executives were part of an effort to conceal and destroy evidence of wrongdoing.

“It is inferred that they would not have been carrying out this extensive concealment and destruction strategy without the knowledge and approval of Rupert Murdoch,” Sherborne said in a court filing. Defense lawyer Anthony Hudson said the proposed changes to the case were unnecessary and seemed aimed at “campaigning against the tabloid press” and as a “substitute for a public inquiry.”

“They appear to be designed to grab headlines,” Hudson said.

Harry’s lawsuit against News Group Newspapers is one of three he’s brought against Britain’s biggest tabloids over alleged unlawful activity carried out by journalists and private investigators they hired that came to light after a phone hacking scandal erupted at Murdoch’s News of the World in 2011. The case is tentatively scheduled to go to trial in January.

In the News Group case, Harry and other claimants allege that between 1994 and 2016, journalists at The News of the World and The Sun violated their privacy through widespread unlawful activity that included intercepting voicemails, tapping phones, bugging cars and using deception to access confidential information. It also alleges that executives lied and concealed and destroyed records.

Sherborne said Murdoch was among the executives who either made, endorsed or had someone else make statements — including at public inquiries — to promote the false narrative that there was only “one rogue reporter” at News of the World. “Those individuals, and NGN and News International corporately, were dishonest in making these statements since they knew them to be false at the time they were made,” Sherborne said.

NGN, a subsidiary of News International, said it has settled 1,300 claims for its newspapers, though The Sun has never accepted liability. “Today the claimants have sought to introduce accusations to the civil court against many current and former journalists, staff and senior executives of News International with misleading pleadings and unjustified inferences in a scurrilous and cynical attack on their integrity,” NGN said in a statement.

[From PBS]

It’s beyond hilarious to me the lawyers representing the Murdoch-owned newspapers are crying about HARRY seeking headlines and Harry attacking their credibility! It’s important to remember that Harry has apparently been talking to James Murdoch (who is somewhat estranged from his father’s businesses) for years. It’s also important to remember that the Windsors and the British media seemed especially freaked out last year when Harry revealed how much he knew about William’s quiet settlement from NGN and the extent of the Windsors’ knowledge about NGN’s hacking.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.