Prince Harry Says He’s ‘Slaying Dragons,’ Calls Out Piers Morgan by Name

Prince Harry called out The Mirror’s former editor Piers Morgan by name Friday, after a High Court judge said he believed testimony suggesting Morgan knew about at least one incident of phone hacking at the newspaper during his tenure.

Harry made the comments in a triumphal statement delivered by his lawyer outside London’s High Court after he won a stunning victory over Mirror Group Newspapers, with a judge concluding the newspaper group engaged in “extensive” phone hacking and conducted a board-level cover-up of its unlawful information gathering.

Harry slammed the British media and suggested he would continue his crusade against them in his statement, saying: “Today’s ruling is vindicating and affirming. I’ve been told that slaying dragons will get you burned. But in light of today’s victory and the importance of doing what is needed for a free and honest press—it’s a worthwhile price to pay. The mission continues.”

Harry also took direct aim at Morgan in the statement, saying: “The Court has found that Mirror Group’s principal board directors, their legal department, senior executives, and editors such as Piers Morgan, clearly knew about or were involved in these illegal activities. Between them, they even went as far as lying under oath to parliament, during the Leveson Inquiry, to the Stock Exchange, and to us all ever since.”

In his own statement delivered outside his home in London, Morgan denied being aware of phone hacking during his editorship. He noted that the judgment found there was “just one article relating to the prince” that involved “unlawful information gathering.”

Morgan also insisted he “never hacked a phone or told anybody else to hack a phone.” He then went on to attack Harry personally, saying the prince’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.”

“This is a guy who has repeatedly trashed his family in public for hundreds of millions of dollars,” even as his grandparents “were dying,” Morgan continued. “It’s hard to imagine, frankly, more appalling behavior than that.”

Harry’s remarks came after the judge said in his verdict that he believed evidence offered by the journalist Omid Scobie, who has been a frequent target of Morgan’s scorn. Scobie said he saw Morgan, when he was editor of The Mirror, be informed that a story about the singer Kylie Minogue had come from hacked messages. Morgan has always denied phone hacking, and in his statement Friday branded Scobie a “deluded fantasist.”

Describing Scobie as “a journalist with a particular interest in writing about the lives of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex,” the judge recounted: “He said that on one day at the Mirror, Mr Morgan came over to discuss an article being written about Kylie Minogue and James Gooding and asked how confident the team were in the story. He was told that the information had come from voicemails. There is an article about Minogue and Gooding dated 11 May 2002 bylined to James Scott, who was one of the showbiz journalists and a known phone hacker. There is an invoice from TDI to Mr Scott dated 7 May 2002 for “extensive inquiries carried out on your behalf” (for £170) and the mobile telephone numbers of both subjects were in Mr Scott’s Palm Pilot.”

The judge concluded: “These documents bear out Mr Scobie’s recollection.”

He added: “Mr Scobie… said that he remembered the incidents very well because it was at such a formative stage of his education in journalism and he was shocked by what he learnt. I found Mr Scobie to be a straightforward and reliable witness and I accept what he said about Mr Morgan’s involvement in the Minogue/Gooding story. No evidence was called by MGN to contradict it.”

As well as comparing taking on the British press to slaying dragons, Harry called the verdict “a great day for truth as well as accountability,” saying it had now been proved “unlawful and criminal activities were carried out at all three of Mirror Group’s newspaper titles (the Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, and the People) on a habitual and widespread basis for more than a decade.”

Morgan took umbrage at Harry’s quip about truth, saying in his own statement that the prince “wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped him around his California-tanned face.”

Harry also praised his legal team for “successfully dismantling the sworn testimony of Mirror Group Newspaper’s senior executives, legal department and journalists,” and condemned “cover-ups and destruction of evidence” by MGN.

He accused the Mirror of carrying out “vendetta journalism” and in a thinly veiled threat said: “I hope that the Court’s findings will serve as a warning to all media organisations who have employed these practices and similarly lied about them. Mirror Group’s actions were so calculated and misleading that their pattern of destroying evidence and concealing their unlawful behaviour continued into the litigation itself and, as the Judge has ruled, even to this day.”

Harry also pointed the finger at other media of amplifying the Mirror Group’s claims, saying their “hollow soundbites were blasted across front pages and across online platforms, and into the next day’s morning television shows.”

Perhaps slightly bizarrely, Harry claimed to be a supporter of journalism and the media, saying: “My commitment to seeing this case through is based on my belief in our need and collective right to a free and honest press, and one which is properly accountable when necessary. That is what we need in Britain and across the globe. Anything else is poisoning the well for a profession we all depend on. The acts listed in this judgement are prime examples of what happens when the power of the press is abused.”

He appeared to call for further action against MGN executives asking “the Metropolitan Police and prosecuting authorities to do their duty for the British public and investigate bringing charges against the company and those who have broken the law.”

A spokesperson for MGN said: “We welcome today’s judgment that gives the business the necessary clarity to move forward from events that took place many years ago. Where historical wrongdoing took place, we apologise unreservedly, have taken full responsibility and paid appropriate compensation.”