How Prince Harry left visibly emotional by day of tense exchanges and questions about ex-girlfriends

Published

11 months ago

June 8, 2023

admin

Wednesday’s proceedings in Prince Harry’s court battle against the Daily Mirror publisher were spiky from the start.

Conscious he had just half a day left to question and ultimately attempt to undermine the Duke of Sussex, the paper’s barrister, Andrew Green KC (King’s Counsel), got straight to business – there was no time for pleasantries.

His first words were: “Prince Harry, we are now on the 22nd article.”

The prince interjected: “Good morning, Mr Green”.

The pair went on to spar for several hours, it was polite but prickly.

Harry in court – as it happened

British royalty versus the highest echelons of the British legal system – Mr Green is a KC, a position to which senior barristers recognised for their excellence are appointed.

This was the King’s son versus a King’s Counsel, part two.

The duke also said “good morning” to those of us waiting outside court 15 and looked relaxed as he walked in.

If he was jet-lagged from his daughter’s second birthday party followed by a flight from the US West Coast, he hid it well.

He puffed out his cheeks as he entered the witness box on Wednesday. Clearly this experience has been draining, but he was quick to smile to familiar faces in the room.

The duke, like everyone else in the room, bowed when the judge, Mr Justice Fancourt, entered. It is courtroom protocol.

Mirror lawyer exasperated

Speaking directly to the judge is not. It resulted in an exasperated Mr Green, representing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), saying: “Could I ask the questions?”

He would later go on to say: “Can I just repeat what I said to you yesterday. This isn’t about you asking me questions, this is about me asking you questions.”

Mr Green took a more combative approach on Wednesday, but Harry was also more assertive. In a tense exchange, the KC asked the royal: “Can you accept lack of phone data suggests you were not hacked by any MGN journalist?”

The prince shook his head and defiantly replied: “Absolutely not”.

Mr Green was quick to follow up: “If the court finds that you were not hacked by MGN, would you be relieved or disappointed?”

Harry said phone hacking was “on an industrial scale across three of the papers at the time” and that he “would feel an injustice, if it wasn’t accepted”.

Mr Green’s follow-up was: “So you want to have been phone hacked?” Harry’s response was solemn: “Nobody wants to be phone-hacked, my lord.”

‘Realm of speculation’

Repeatedly over the past two days, Mr Green has declared: “We are in the realm of speculation.”

Harry was always quick to counter – on one occasion saying: “Well no, I don’t believe my girlfriend would have given the Mirror Group her number”.

He later told the court, when answering questions from his own barrister: “For my whole life, the press misled me, covered up the wrongdoing, and sitting here in court knowing that the defence has the evidence in front of them and for Mr Green to suggest I’m speculating… I’m not sure what to say about that.”

No one enjoys talking about their ex. Prince Harry was grilled on his relationship with his, Chelsy Davy, for many hours.

Details of a visit to a strip club which led to a row between the couple was pored over. Prince Harry said Ms Davy “now has her own family and this process is as distressing for her as it is for me”.

Harry appeared weary

By coming to the witness box, Harry has had to go through each of the 33 articles one by one – you could see on his face that he found it emotionally draining.

He looked weary discussing his past relationships.

He told the court: “It was distressing going through this process and I would say more distressing sitting here having to go through it all again.”

He looked pained when saying another former girlfriend, Caroline Flack, “was no longer with us”.

On multiple occasions, Mr Green asked Harry whose mobile phone was hacked for each of the 33 stories this case focused on.

Harry replied: “I’m not sure as the evidence has been destroyed.”

He went on to say “there was an industrial scale of destruction of evidence” by MGN.

Seven gruelling hours

It’s an allegation that is strongly denied by the publishers. He then described the “abuse, intrusion and hate” directed at himself and his wife, Meghan, more recently.

After seven gruelling hours of cross-examination by Mr Green, Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne asked his client how he felt.

He’d been in the witness box for a day and a half, giving evidence in open court, in front of the world’s media, on his personal life.

Harry paused. “It’s a lot”, he said, with an uncomfortable smile and a flushed face.

His voice cracked when he answered the judge’s follow-up question.

The prince then left the witness box, but not the courtroom. He was eager to listen to the evidence of the next witness – Jane Kerr, former royal editor at the Mirror.

Harry took a seat next to his solicitors. He puffed out his cheeks, clearly drained, and briefly puts his hands on his face.

It was now his barrister David Sherborne’s turn to question a witness for the Mirror.

Kerr’s byline is on 10 out of the 33 articles being considered by the court.

His cross-examination of Kerr had a spicy start, saying: “You didn’t want to come to court today, did you?”

She replied: “No, I didn’t.” He stated the “court ordered you to come”.

Sherborne said the reporter commissioned private investigators on 900 different occasions while working on the Mirror’s newsdesk. She insisted this was a regular part of her duties on the newspaper.

Sherborne’s questioning of the former royal editor was robust.

At one point, Mr Green stood up to object to his line of questioning and described it as “an ambush”. The judge said it was “not an ambush”.

Ms Kerr will continue giving evidence on Thursday.

Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts

While we have finished hearing from Prince Harry directly, there’s still more than a fortnight of this trial to run.

The judge will then decide, on the balance of probabilities, on an outcome.

As it’s a civil case – that could be financial, known as damages. But for Prince Harry, it’s clear – this wasn’t about money.

UK

Former model almost died trying to cure cancer with juice diet

Published

3 hours ago

April 20, 2024

admin

Former model almost died trying to cure cancer with juice diet

A former model who almost died trying to cure her cancer with a juice diet has warned others against “cutting out” traditional medical advice and trying to source alternative information online.

Irena Stoynova forked out £2,000 on juicers and would spend up to three hours a day preparing liquid meals for the next day, believing it would clear her of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The 39-year-old was diagnosed in June 2021 when medics recommended that she receive conventional treatment, but she “shut them out” after watching people “talk about the success rate of alternative therapies online”.

Ms Stoynova, from Crondall in Hampshire, said she took to a juice diet for two-and-a-half years, but also tried a raw-food diet, intermittent fasting, boiling herbs and special teas.

She said that she was advised to start chemotherapy, but she turned to the internet to find alternative advice and “everything started from there”.

She said she listened to one man with hundreds of thousands of followers on social media who claimed the body could “heal itself” through a radical lifestyle and diet change.

Ms Stoynova said she became a “fanatic” of the various diets and holistic therapies she followed, adding: “It was like tunnel vision.

“I didn’t stop, I was just so weak, I had sleep deprivation and hallucinations. I didn’t even have the strength to open the door for the delivery man.

“I couldn’t breathe because there was fluid on my lungs, I lost about 20 kilograms because of the dieting.”

Doctors said Ms Stoynova was on the verge of death when she was taken to Frimley Park Hospital by ambulance in May last year.

She was told by doctors she would likely die without treatment for her cancer – which was stage three – but Ms Stoynova continued to refuse for a number of days before finally agreeing to receive chemotherapy.

Medics described “frustrating” conversations with her but eventually, after 10 days in hospital, she agreed to start chemotherapy.

Ms Stoynova, who is now in remission, added: “I now say to people that the side effects from chemotherapy are a piece of cake compared to the side effects that I got from trying the holistic treatment.”

She added: “What I would say is it’s great to have beliefs, it’s great if they’re backed by science, and please don’t cut off your consultants.

“I cut off consultants and everything connected with standard medicine and I almost lost my life.”

Dr Clare Rees, consultant haematologist at Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, said: “This is an extreme scenario and genuinely in the first 24 hours of Irena’s admission, I was unclear whether she would survive this or not.

“But the problem is that misinformation often spreads faster than the truth and obviously, if someone’s given the option of juice versus tablets or chemotherapy and injecting drugs into their bodies, you can see why they would prefer to do some of it if it will give them the same outcome – but the problem is that is not evidence-based practice.

“We always encourage people to go to Lymphoma Action or Macmillan Cancer Support for genuine information.”

UK

Former model almost died trying to cure cancer with juice diet

Published

6 hours ago

April 20, 2024

admin

A former model who almost died trying to cure her cancer with a juice diet has warned others against “cutting out” traditional medical advice and trying to source alternative information online.

Irena Stoynova forked out £2,000 on juicers and would spend up to three hours a day preparing liquid meals for the next day, believing it would clear her of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The 39-year-old was diagnosed in June 2021 when medics recommended that she receive conventional treatment, but she “shut them out” after “reading about and watching many doctors and professors talk about the success rate of alternative therapies online”.

Ms Stoynova, from Crondall in Hampshire, said she took to a juice diet for two-and-a-half years, but also tried a raw-food diet, intermittent fasting, boiling herbs and special teas.

She said that she was advised to start chemotherapy, but she turned to the internet to find alternative advice and “everything started from there”.

She said she listened to one man with hundreds of thousands of followers on social media claimed the body could “heal itself” through a radical lifestyle and diet change.