Former Mirror editor Piers Morgan has accused Prince Harry of wanting to “destroy the monarchy” in a scathing attack after a High Court ruling in a privacy case brought by the royal.
Mr Morgan accused Prince Harry of a “hypocritical” approach to privacy in a statement outside his home this afternoon.
Phone hacking by the Mirror Group newspapers was carried out from 1996 to 2011, and was “widespread and habitual” from 1998, a High Court judge found today.
He also said he found it “convincing” that Mr Morgan had known about phone hacking when in charge at the paper.
The broadcaster edited The Mirror from 1995 to 2004.
But the former editor said this afternoon: “There is just one article relating to the prince published in The Daily Mirror during my entire nine-year tenure as editor that he [the High Court judge] thinks may have involved some unlawful information gathering.
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“To be clear, I had then and still have zero knowledge of how that particular story was gathered.”
Mr Morgan said he wanted to reiterate “I’ve never hacked a phone or told anyone else to hack a phone”.
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“I wasn’t called as a witness by either side in the case nor was I asked to provide any statement. I would have very happily agreed to do either or both of those things had I been asked,” he added.
“So I wasn’t able to respond to the many false allegations that were spewed about me in court by old foes of mine with an axe to grind.”
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Prince Harry: The mission continues
Morgan: Prince’s ‘real mission’ is to ‘destroy monarchy’
In reference to Prince Harry, who was part of the case against The Mirror, Mr Morgan said: “I want to say this: Prince Harry’s outrage at media intrusion into the private lives of the Royal Family is only matched by his own ruthless, greedy and hypocritical enthusiasm for doing it himself.
“He also says he’s on a mission to reform the media when it’s become clear his real mission, along with his wife, is to destroy the British monarchy.
“He talked today about the appalling behaviour of the press. But this is a guy who’s repeatedly trashed his family in public for hundreds of millions of dollars, even as two of its most senior and respected members were dying – his grandparents.
“It’s hard to imagine, frankly, more appalling behaviour than that,” he added.
“As for him saying this is a good day for truth, the duke has been repeatedly exposed in recent years as someone who wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped him around his California-tanned face.
“He demands accountability for the press, but refuses to accept any for himself for smearing the Royal Family, his own family, as a bunch of callous racists without producing a shred of proof to support those disgraceful claims.”
The broadcaster also took aim at ex-political strategist Alastair Campbell and royal journalist Omid Scobie, who were both witnesses in the case.
“The judge appears to have believed the evidence of Omid Scobie, who lied about me in his new book, and he lied about me in court, and the whole world now knows him to be a deluded fantasist,” Mr Morgan said.
“And he believed the evidence of Alastair Campbell, another proven liar who spun this country into an illegal war.”
The man who served 14 years in jail for the murder of schoolboy Jimmy Mizen has been recalled to prison for breaching his licence conditions.
It follows reporting in The Sun newspaper that Jake Fahri, 35, was a drill rapper releasing music under the name TEN, who conceals his identity with a balaclava, and was played on BBC 1Xtra.
A Probation Service spokesperson said: “Our thoughts are with Jimmy Mizen’s family who deserve better than to see their son’s murderer shamelessly boasting about his violent crime.”
Jimmy’s father Barry told Sky News: “We’re not gloating or anything, in a way it’s quite sad.”
His son bled to death after Fahri threw an oven dish at him in a south London bakery on 10 May 2008.
The dish shattered on his chin and severed an artery in the schoolboy’s neck.
Fahri was 19 when he was given a life sentence in 2009 with a minimum term of 14 years and was released on licence in June 2023.
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His music was played on BBC 1Xtra less than 18 months later, the Sun reported, adding that DJ Theo Johnson named him an “up-and-coming star”.
Jimmy’s father earlier said he and his wife Margaret were “stunned into silence” when they were told about Fahri’s music, which often features violent themes.
In one song, which appears to reference Jimmy’s death, he raps about “sharpening” a blade.
“Judge took a look at me, before the trial even started he already knows he’s gonna throw the book at me,” the lyrics say.
Another track includes the lines: “See a man’s soul fly from his eyes and his breath gone… I wanted more, it made it less wrong. Seeing blood spilled same floor he was left on.”
The BBC has said the artist’s tracks do not feature on any BBC playlists, and that a track which appeared to reference Jimmy’s death had never been played on its channels.
A spokesman for the broadcaster added there were “no further plans to play his music”, adding: “We were not aware of his background and we in no way condone his actions.”
A Probation Service spokesperson said: “All offenders released on licence are subject to strict conditions. As this case shows, we will recall them to prison if they break the rules.”
Jimmy’s parents founded the Mizen Foundation after their son’s death. The charity helps young people in London who are escaping violence.
Mr Mizen said: “It appears that if he’s been recalled to prison, he must’ve breached his licence conditions
The man suspected of abducting Madeleine McCann won’t face any charges in the foreseeable future, a prosecutor has told Sky News.
German drifter Christian B, who cannot be fully identified under his country’s privacy law, is expected to be freed from an unrelated jail sentence this year while police in three countries continue to search for evidence against him.
Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said: “There is currently no prospect of an indictment in the Maddie case.
“As things stand, the accused Christian B’s imprisonment will end in early September.”
Madeleine, aged three, was asleep with her younger twin siblings in the family’s Portuguese rented holiday apartment before mother Kate discovered her missing at around 10pm on 3 May, 2007.
Her parents were dining nearby on the complex with friends and taking turns to check on all their sleeping children every half an hour.
Madeleine’s disappearance has become the world’s most mysterious missing child case.
Philipp Marquort, one of Christian B’s defence lawyers, welcomed the prosecutor’s pessimism about bringing charges.
He said: “This confirms the suspicions that we have repeatedly expressed, namely that there is no reliable evidence against our client.
“We regret that we have not yet been granted access to the investigation files. We have not yet been able to effectively counter the public prejudice arising from statements made by the prosecutor’s office.”
Christian B, 47, is in jail and coming to the end of his sentence for the rape of an elderly American woman in Praia da Luz, the Portuguese resort where Madeleine disappeared.
In October, he was acquitted on a series of rape and indecent assault charges after a non-jury trial in Germany, in which several references were made to his status as the main suspect in the Madeleine case.
The prosecutor said he was awaiting the court’s written judgment before launching an appeal against the acquittal. He believes the trial judges were biased against the prosecution.
If successful, he could apply for a new arrest warrant for Christian B to keep him in custody until a retrial with new judges.
He said: “We hope that the Federal Court of Justice will decide before the end of the accused’s imprisonment. If the Federal Court follows our legal opinion, we could apply for a new arrest warrant for the accused’s offences, so that the accused would then remain in custody beyond September 2025.
Mr Marquort said the defence team would oppose the prosecution’s appeal against the acquittal.
Prosecutor Mr Wolters has said in the past that he believes Madeleine is dead and that Christian B was responsible for her death. The suspect denies any involvement.
The case against Christian B is purely circumstantial; he’s alleged to have confessed to a friend that he abducted Madeleine, he has convictions for sex crimes against children, he was living in the area at the time, his mobile phone was close by when the young girl vanished and he re-registered one of his vehicles the next day.
The prosecutor won’t say what evidence he has to convince him Madeleine is dead, but he admitted he is still trying to find forensic evidence to link Christian B to the girl.
Jim Gamble, former head of the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre, said he had expected the prosecutor to charge Christian B soon.
“He’s implied the whole way through that he has something more than the public are aware of,” he said.
“He’s made fairly definitive statements about whether Madeleine is alive or dead so you would expect their strategy to have been to charge him sooner rather than later.
“From what he’s said today I wonder if we’re witnessing the re-positioning of something to manage the disappointment that’ll come.”
Mr Wolters, who is based in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, is investigating the case with the help of Portuguese police and detectives from Scotland Yard.
An investigation, led by the Surrey and Sussex Police Major Crime Team, is under way and inquiries remain ongoing, police said.
Senior Investigating Officer DCI Kimball Edey said specialist officers “are working around the clock to gather as much information as possible,” and that the force’s “thoughts are with the family and friends of the victims at this unbelievably difficult time”.