A courteous but implacable face-to-face: Prince Harry underwent, Tuesday, June 6 for five hours, a chiseled interrogation, led by the lawyer of the publisher of the Daily Mirror whom he accuses of collecting illegal information in British justice. His name? Andrew Green.
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In the English press, there is no shortage of expressions to describe the man who has been pleading for 35 years at the London Bar: "beast of the courts", "opponent to fear", "intrepid counter-interrogator"... It must be said that Mr. Green is formidable. He is ranked by the Legal 500 (British ranking of the best law firms, editor's note) among the best in his profession, and this, in various fields (commercial litigation, banking, finance, media, entertainment ...) and has represented personalities such as the pop group Mungo Jerry or the founder of Island Records, Chris Blackwell.
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In video, Prince Harry arrives at the court in London for a trial against a tabloid
"An old man young enough to have an appetite"
For the time being, facing Harry, it is the lawyer of the accused party who leads the dance, as the procedure at this stage of this civil trial requires. Andrew Green begins by offering a verbal "apology" from the MGN press group, which publishes the British tabloid as well as its Sunday and celebrity editions. "It should never have happened and it will never happen again," insists the lawyer. An apology limited to the facts acknowledged by the press group, which rejects the accusations of hacking telephone messages.
On the one hand, a lawyer who knows his case inside out and is determined that his client only bears responsibility for his own deviations but no more. On the other, in a dark suit, a Prince Harry who says he is still traumatized by the repeated intrusions of the press that have marked his life. For former opponents consulted by The Independent, it is a safe bet that Andrew Green seeks in this file to pass the heir to the British throne for "an unreliable historian". "He won't do it, I think, in a particularly unpleasant way, but he will show that because he's a very prominent person, you can't really trust what he says... [Andrew Green] is old enough to have experience, but young enough to have an appetite."
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Outstanding interrogator
Andrew Green, a lawyer for the Daily Mirror in his trial against Prince Harry, leaves the High Court in London. (June 7, 2023.) HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP
True to his reputation, Andrew Green executes his plans. On Tuesday, he immediately questioned Prince Harry on the causal link that can be established between such an article and his grievances, seeks to know if he had read them, how he had known about them, many of them dating from a time when he was a child or teenager. "I don't remember," "it was 20 years ago," "maybe but I'm not sure," replies the youngest son of King Charles III, who complains about the intrusions of newspapers that he describes as merciless. "I have experienced the hostility of the press since I was born," he says, reflecting on the state of paranoia in which these intrusions plunged him. "When friends become suspects, 'your circle starts to shrink,'" Harry continues.
In front of him, Andrew Green takes his accusations seriously, listens attentively. He suddenly asks Meghan Markle's husband to explain an expression used in his written testimony, in particular to know if the "blood on the hands" that journalists have according to him relates to a specific article. "Some of the editors and journalists who are responsible for causing so much suffering, upheaval and in some cases, to speak personally, death," Harry replies, in a clear allusion to his mother Diana, who died in 1997 in a car accident in Paris, pursued by paparazzi. The "blood on the hands" is directed "more broadly against the press," he added, adding that he had not named any journalists in this paragraph.
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Battle royale
The precise questions of Andrew Green, which Tuesday allowed to sweep twenty of the 33 disputed articles, allow to trace the significant episodes of his life of the prince now exiled in California with his wife and two children. From that fancy dress party where he appeared in a Nazi costume to his relationship with his former girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, and their vacation in Mozambique. Time and again, the lawyer points out that this or that information was in the public domain long before it was in the columns of the MGN group's headlines, and cooks Harry on the evidence he has to support his accusations. "Everyone feels a lot of sympathy for the intrusions you've suffered in your lifetime," said attorney Andrew Green, "but that doesn't mean it's the result of illegal activities." If Prince Harry no longer intends to be silent, Andrew Green does not intend to let go of the piece.
