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Prince Harry has spoken about the breakdown of his relationship with brother William and blamed the media for Meghan suffering a miscarriage in the final episodes of the couple’s documentary series.

The second volume of Harry & Meghan goes much further than the first, with Harry accusing William of screaming and shouting at him at a summit meeting over “Megxit”, and saying he believes he and his wife lost their baby in 2020 because of coverage in the Mail.

‘She never asked me to leave’, Harry says – live updates as final episodes drop

Other revelations include the duke saying a joint statement was put out without his permission in his and his brother’s name, denying a story that William had “bullied” him out of the Royal Family. He also accuses William’s office of trading stories – something they “promised” they would never do when they were younger.

Palace aides would have been preparing themselves for bombshells in the second volume after a trailer included accusations that the royal household leaked negative stories as part of a “war against Meghan”. However, they are yet to comment on the programme.

Harry & Meghan. The Netflix Global event continues December 15.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9WMpiH8qd8
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Pic: Netflix

Key talking points from the first three episodes:

  • Harry says it was “terrifying” to hear William ‘shout and scream’ during Megxit crisis meeting
  • He says there is now a “wedge” between them and accuses brother’s office of trading stories
  • Duke also blames media for Meghan’s miscarriage in 2020
  • Meghan talks about suicidal thoughts
  • Harry says he was “trained” to keep stiff upper lip over wife’s struggles
  • He also describes how Meghan “stealing the limelight… that upsets people”
  • Broadcaster Danny Baker’s tweet following birth of Archie also addressed

‘It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me’

Talking about tweet - "Meghan needs to die"
Screen Grabs taken from Harry and Meghan  Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan
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In the fifth episode, Harry recalls a meeting with the Queen, his father and William, now the Prince of Wales, about the couple’s future plans after they had announced they wanted to step back as senior royals.

Recalling what happened behind the scenes after the Queen summoned them to Sandringham in January 2020, he says: “I went in with the same proposal that we’d already made publicly, but once I got there I was given five options – one being all in, no change, five being all out.

“I chose option three in the meeting – half in, half out. Have our own jobs but also work in support of the Queen.

“It became very clear very quickly that goal was not up for discussion or debate. It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me and my father say things that just simply weren’t true. And my grandmother, you know, quietly sit there and take it all in.

“But you have to understand that, from the family’s perspective, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things and her ultimate, sort of, mission, goal/responsibility is the institution.”

FILE PHOTO: Britain's Queen Elizabeth, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex pose for a picture with some of Queen's Young Leaders at a Buckingham Palace reception following the final Queen's Young Leaders Awards Ceremony, in London, Britain June 26, 2018. John Stillwell/Pool via Reuters/File Photo

Harry says the Queen would act on advice she was given by staff.

“People around her are telling her, ‘by the way, that proposal, or these two doing X,Y, Z is going to be seen as an attack on the institution’,” he says.

“The meeting finished without any solidified action plan. I think from their perspective, they had to believe that it was more about us, and maybe the issues that we had, as opposed to their partner, the media, and that relationship that was causing so much pain for us. They saw what they wanted to see.”

Read more:
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Harry and Meghan’s wedding album – new pictures revealed
Key revelations from first three episodes

Screen Grabs taken from Harry and Meghan  Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan
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Harry goes on to say the “saddest part” of what has happened is “this wedge created between myself and my brother, so that he’s now on the institution’s side”.

The duke continues: “And part of that I get, I understand, right, that’s his inheritance. So to some extent it’s already ingrained in him that part of his responsibility is the survivability and continuation of this institution.”

Harry says a story came out that day saying that “part of the reason that Meghan and I were leaving was because William had bullied us out”.

A joint statement was issued on the day of the Sandringham meeting branding a front page story about the brothers’ relationship as false, offensive and potentially harmful.

Harry says he was told about the statement “squashing the story about him bullying us out of the family” after the meeting. “I couldn’t believe it. No one had asked me permission to put my name to a statement like that.

“I rang M and I told her and she burst into floods of tears, because within four hours they were happy to lie to protect my brother and yet for three years they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.”

Meghan’s mother and Harry speak of devastation hearing she contemplated suicide

Harry & Meghan. The Netflix Global event continues December 15.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9WMpiH8qd8
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Pic: Netflix

In the fourth episode, Harry speaks about “lies” in the Royal Family, and compares Meghan’s treatment in the media to that of his mother, Diana.

“The lies that’s one thing, you kind of get used to that when you live within this family, but what they were doing to her and the effect it was having on her – like, enough, enough of the pain, enough of the suffering.”

As shots of Diana and Charles are shown, he continues: “No one sees what is happening behind closed doors. Back in the day my mum was in the back of the car going to engagements in floods of tears, and then my dad saying, ‘we’re almost there’ and 30 seconds to wipe the tears away, slap on some make-up, and the door opens and smile, everything is fine.”

Meghan talks about having suicidal thoughts – something she spoke about previously during the couple’s interview with Oprah in 2021.

A new Harry & Meghan trailer has been released for their Netflix docuseries.
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Pic: Netflix

“All of this will stop if I’m not here and that was the scariest thing about it, it was such clear thinking,” she says in the documentary.

Her mother, Doria Ragland, recalls finding out how her daughter was feeling: “I remember her telling me that she had wanted to take her own life and that really broke my heart because I knew that it was bad, but to constantly be picked at by these vultures, just picking away at her spirit that she would actually think of not wanting to be here, that’s not an easy one for a mum to hear. And I can’t protect her.”

Harry says he was “devastated” when he realised just how much his wife was struggling.

“I knew that she was struggling, we were both struggling, but I never thought it would get to that stage and the fact that it got to that stage, I felt angry and ashamed,” he says. “I didn’t deal with it particularly well. I dealt with it as institutional Harry as opposed to husband Harry, and what took over my feelings was my royal role.

“I had been trained to think, ‘what are people going to think if we don’t go to this event, we are gonna be late’, and looking back now I hate myself for it.”

Meghan says she wanted to get help but “wasn’t allowed”.

‘To see my brother’s office copy the very same thing… that was heartbreaking’

Britain's William, Prince of Wales and Prince Harry march during a procession where the coffin of Britain's Queen Elizabeth is transported from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament for her lying in state, in London, Britain, September 14, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier

Speaking about the press interest, Harry says: “No one would have private conversations with the editors saying ‘enough’. My dad said to me, ‘darling boy, you can’t take on the media, the media will always be the media’. And I said I fundamentally disagree.”

Harry then says: “I have 30 years experience of looking behind the curtain and seeing how this system works and how it runs and just constant briefings about other members of the family, favours inviting the press in, it’s a dirty game.”

He also speaks about the “leaking” and “planting of stories” – an issue addressed by Meghan in the preview trailer. “So if the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their principal, they will trade and give you something about someone else’s principal, so the offices end up working against each other, so it’s kind of a weird understanding, acceptance that this happens,” he says.

He says he and William “both saw what happened in our dad’s office and we made an agreement to never have that happen to our office”.

With images of the brothers as children shown on screen, the duke says: “I would far rather get destroyed in the press than play along with this game or this business of trading, and to see my brother’s office copy the very same thing that we promised the two of us would never ever do, that was heartbreaking.”

Harry also says he believes Meghan suffered a miscarriage “because of what the Mail did”.

He says: “I watched the whole thing. Now, do we absolutely know that the miscarriage was created, caused by that? Course we don’t. But bearing in mind the stress that it caused, the lack of sleep and the timing of the pregnancy, how many weeks in she was, I can say from what I saw, that miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her.”

Meghan’s letter to her father

Thomas Markle fears he will never see his daughter again

The final three episodes of the series also take a look at a letter written by Meghan to her father, Thomas Markle, about interviews he was giving, which was published in part by the Mail on Sunday.

She says she wrote it after seeking advice from the Queen and Charles, but that she tried to send it discreetly.

“People are scratching their heads going, ‘how would the Mail have either the stupidity, or the whatever you want to call it, to print a letter between a daughter and a father?'” says Harry. “Well the answer is simple: they knew the family would encourage us not to sue.”

In the end, they did sue – with Meghan winning her privacy claim. However, she was awarded just £1 compensation from the Mail On Sunday’s publisher for misuse of private information.

‘Then one day this little organism comes in’

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‘When someone steals the limelight, it upsets people’

Meghan also says the couple’s former private secretary told her about the monarchy: “It is like a fish that is swimming perfectly. It is powerful, it is on the right current. Then one day this little organism comes in. This foreign organism. And the entire thing goes… What is that? What is it doing here? It doesn’t look like us. It doesn’t move like us. We don’t like it. Get it off of us.

“And she just explained that, you know, they’ll soon see, that it’s stronger, faster, even better with this organism as part of it. It will be hard at the beginning for them to adjust to this new thing but then it’ll be amazing.”

Meghan added: “And I was really hopeful that that was true.”

The episode addresses the couple’s initial popularity following their wedding and when they announced they were having their first child, and how this affected the Royal Family.

“The issue is when someone who is marrying in who should be a supporting act is stealing the limelight or doing the job better than the person who was born to do this, that upsets people, it shifts the balance,” says Harry.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s death

Prince Harry and Prince Philip

The final episode shows Harry watching footage of black cabs in London lining The Mall as a mark of respect following the death of Prince Philip in 2021.

Speaking about his grandfather’s death, Harry says: “I was actually really happy for my grandfather. He went quietly. He went peacefully. He went happily.”

Asked about what it was like returning to the UK for the funeral, he adds: “It was hard, especially spending time having chats with my brother and my father who just were very much focused on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation.

“So none of us really wanted to have to talk about it at my grandfather’s funeral, but we did. I’ve had to make peace with the fact that I’m probably never going to get genuine accountability or a genuine apology.

“You know, my wife and I, we’re moving on. We were focused on what’s coming next.”

Danny Baker’s tweet

Screen Grabs taken from Harry and Meghan  Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan
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Pic: Netflix

Harry also speaks in the series about broadcaster Danny Baker’s infamous tweet following the birth of baby Archie.

The radio presenter posted a black and white photo showing a well-dressed man and woman holding hands with a suited chimpanzee, captioning it: “Royal baby leaves hospital.”

“The amount of abuse that we got, especially you (Meghan), but the both of us, for not wanting to serve our child up on a silver platter was incredible,” says Harry.

“Someone in the media posting a photograph of a couple with a chimp, and at the top it said, ‘Royal baby leaves hospital’. So that was one of the first things that I saw.”

Baker later apologised, writing: “Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up. Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased.”

Read more:
Row over whether Royal Family were approached for series
‘I’ve always been a hugger’: Meghan on meeting the royals for first time

The final episodes of Harry & Meghan come a week after the first three launched, recording 81.55 million viewing hours so far, translating to viewing in 28 million households, according to Netflix.

The streaming platform has launched the series almost three years after the Sussexes revealed they intended to “step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent”.

They officially left the monarchy in March 2020 and went on to sign lucrative deals, thought to be worth more than £100m, with Netflix and Spotify.

Before the first episodes were released, it emerged a photo and footage shown in two preview trailers, apparently to illustrate hounding by the paparazzi, were from events the couple were not associated with.

Neither Kensington Palace, which represents the Prince and Princess of Wales, nor Buckingham Palace have commented on the series.

Sky News understands palace officials are focused on the Princess of Wales’s carol service, which is due to be filmed at Westminster Abbey on Thursday.

The event will aim to shine a light on a congregation of almost 2,000 people who have been helping their communities across the UK, as well as remembering the Queen’s legacy.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.

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What do dolphins get up to beneath the waves? Their poo has the answers

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What do dolphins get up to beneath the waves? Their poo has the answers

Scientists are turning detective to work out what British dolphins are up to beneath the waves – by using forensic-style DNA techniques on their poo.

Conservationists have been studying the 250 or so bottlenose dolphins living in Cardigan Bay, west Wales, over many decades.

Up to now, they have only been able to observe the dolphins as they surface to breathe or play, identifying the animals from the unique marks on their dorsal fins to establish which animals were hanging out together and where.

Dolphins in Cardigan Bay. Pic: Sarah Perry/WTSWW
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Dolphins in Cardigan Bay. Pic: Sarah Perry/WTSWW

But now for the first time scientists are using DNA excreted by the dolphins in their poo to build a more complete picture of their lives.

It allows them to identify the sex of individuals and how they are related to other animals. Signficantly, it also shows what the dolphins have been eating.

Dolphin poo. Pic: Sarah Perry/WTSWW
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Dolphin poo. Pic: Sarah Perry/WTSWW

Dr Sarah Perry, marine conservation manager at The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, said: “In order to be able to conserve them, we need to know why they’re here and a big a missing part of that is, what they’re feeding on.

“Is that changing at different times of the year? Are certain species of fish more important to them early on in the year, in the spring, and the summer months, and then does that change over the autumn and winter months?

“Are certain species important for younger animals? We don’t know that, so that kind of information, we need to find out.”

Dr Sarah Perry
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Dr Sarah Perry

Catching dolphin poo involves a large element of luck.

The animals occasionally eject a cloud of waste material as they swim.

But it quickly sinks, so the scientists’ boat needs to be close enough for them to scoop it out of the sea with a fine-meshed net.

A sample is then sent to a lab at the University of Aberystwyth, where DNA is extracted for analysis.

More from Sky News:
PM could scrap divisive policy
Bates attacks Post Office scheme

Scientists on the hunt for dolphin poo.
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Scientists on the hunt for dolphin poo

Dolphins adapting to effects of climate change

Results so far suggest the dolphins are having to adapt to a change in fish species as the water warms.

Dr Niall McKeown
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Dr Niall McKeown

Dr Niall McKeown, a marine biologist at the university, said: “We are seeing large amounts of sardine, sprat, and anchovy.

“This is quite interesting because these are species that are known to have increased in abundance in Welsh waters in recent years in response, we believe, to climate change.”

A scientist analyses a sample
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Dr Niall analyses a sample

Scientists unsure why dolphin numbers are falling

But questions remain about the dolphins.

The number in Cardigan Bay seems to be falling, but scientists are not sure whether that’s a natural cycle or a response to other factors.

Boat noise and disturbance from some fishing activities, such as scallop dredging, could impact the animals, which rely on sound to communicate.

Dr Parry said: “How lucky are we to have such an important population of dolphins here? It’s crazy that we really don’t know that much about them.”

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Sir Alan Bates attacks ‘kangaroo court’ Post Office scheme after ‘take it or leave it’ offer

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Sir Alan Bates attacks 'kangaroo court' Post Office scheme after 'take it or leave it' offer

Sir Alan Bates has accused the government of presiding over a “quasi kangaroo court” for Post Office compensation.

Writing in The Sunday Times, the campaigner, who led a years-long effort for justice for sub-postmasters, revealed he had been given a “take it or leave it” offer that was less than half of his original claim.

“The sub-postmaster compensation schemes have been turned into quasi-kangaroo courts in which the Department for Business and Trade sits in judgement of the claims and alters the goal posts as and when it chooses,” he said.

“Claims are, and have been, knocked back on the basis that legally you would not be able to make them, or that the parameters of the scheme do not extend to certain items.”

More than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as if money was missing from their accounts.

Many are still waiting for compensation despite the previous government saying those who had their convictions quashed were eligible for £600,000 payouts.

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‘It still gives me nightmares’

After the Post Office terminated his contract over a false shortfall in 2003, Sir Alan began seeking out other sub-postmasters and eventually took the Post Office to court.

More on Post Office Scandal

A group litigation order (GLO) scheme was set up to achieve redress for 555 claimants who took the Post Office to the High Court between 2017 and 2019.

Sir Alan, who was portrayed by actor Toby Jones in ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, has called for an independent body to be created to deliver compensation.

He added that promises the compensation schemes would be “non-legalistic” had turned out to be “worthless”.

It is understood around 80% of postmasters in Sir Alan’s group have accepted a full and final redress, or been paid most of their offer.

Read more:
Post Office scandal explained

Who are the key figures in the scandal?

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‘Lives were destroyed’

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson told Sky News: “We pay tribute to all the postmasters who’ve suffered from this scandal, including Sir Alan for his tireless campaign for justice, and we have quadrupled the total amount paid to postmasters since entering government.

“We recognise there will be an absence of evidence given the length of time which has passed, and we therefore aim to give the benefit of the doubt to postmasters as far as possible.

“Anyone unhappy with their offer can have their case reviewed by a panel of experts, which is independent of the government.”

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PM could lift controversial benefit cap in budget – as Farage makes two big election promises

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PM could lift controversial benefit cap in budget - as Farage makes two big election promises

Sir Keir Starmer could decide to lift the two-child benefit cap in the autumn budget, amid further pressure from Nigel Farage to appeal to traditional Labour voters.

The Reform leader will use a speech this week to commit his party to scrapping the two-child cap, as well as reinstating winter fuel payments in full.

The prime minister – who took Westminster by surprise at PMQs by revealing his intention to row back on the winter fuel cut – has previously said he would like to lift the two-child cap if the government could afford it.

There are now mounting suggestions an easing of the controversial benefit restriction may be unveiled when the chancellor delivers the budget later this year.

According to The Observer, Sir Keir told cabinet ministers he wanted to axe the measure – and asked the Treasury to look for ways to fund the move.

It comes after the government delayed the release of its child poverty strategy, which is expected to recommend the divisive cap – introduced by former Tory chancellor George Osborne – is scrapped.

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Why did Labour delay their child poverty strategy?

Ministers have already said any changes to winter fuel payments, triggered by mounting political pressure, would only be made when the government’s next fiscal event rolls round.

The Financial Times reported it may be done by restoring the benefit to all pensioners, with the cash needed being clawed back from the wealthy through the tax system.

The payment was taken from more than 10 million pensioners this winter after it became means-tested, and its unpopularity was a big factor in Labour’s battering at recent elections.

Before Wednesday’s PMQs, the prime minister and chancellor had insisted there would be no U-turn.

More from Sky News:
PM’s winter fuel claim ‘not credible’
Starmer vs Reeves – the ‘rift’ in Downing Street

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Will winter fuel U-turn happen?

Many Labour MPs have called for the government to do more to help the poorest in society, amid mounting concern over the impact of wider benefit reforms.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown this week told Sky News the two-child cap was “pretty discriminatory” and could be scrapped by raising money through a tax on the gambling industry.

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Brown questioned over winter fuel U-turn

Mr Farage, who believes Reform UK can win the next election, will this week accuse Sir Keir of being “out of touch with working people”.

In a speech first reported by The Sunday Telegraph, he is expected to say: “It’s going to be these very same working people that will vote Reform at the next election and kick Labour out of government.”

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