Prince Harry cellphone hacking trial: Royal biographer denies having ‘vested curiosity’ in serving to Duke

The creator of a biography on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has denied having a “vested interest” in serving to Prince Harry, the High Court has heard.

Omid Scobie, co-author of the biography Finding Freedom, about Harry and the Duchess of Sussex, entered the witness field on Monday as a part of a trial in claims introduced by a number of high-profile people, together with Harry, in opposition to Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).

The writer is accused of unlawful information-gathering together with voicemail interception, securing info by deception and hiring personal investigators for illegal actions.

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MGN is contesting the case, it has at all times mentioned that there’s “no evidence, or no sufficient evidence, of voicemail interception” in any of the 4 claims chosen as “representative” instances.

At the start of a cross-examination of Mr Scobie, Andrew Green KC, for MGN, described Finding Freedom – which he wrote with fellow journalist Carolyn Durand – as “favourable to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex”.

Mr Scobie replied that the e book was “fair”.

The barrister later requested whether or not the reporter’s profession is “to some extent linked to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex” and when requested if Mr Scobie had a “vested interest” in serving to Prince Harry, he replied: “No.

“What I’m doing proper now could be giving ammunition to the tabloids to proceed calling me his good friend.”

The royal correspondent later mentioned he was a journalist “trying to do my job” amid claims he was a “cheerleader” or “mouthpiece” for the couple.

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The line of questioning comes after Mr Scobie, who, the court docket heard, spent every week on the Sunday People, claimed that he was given “a list of mobile numbers followed by a detailed verbal description of how to listen to voicemails, as if it were a routine newsgathering technique”.

In his witness assertion, he mentioned: “I was taken aback by what seemed completely immoral and I never carried out the task.”

The High Court in London was additionally instructed that in spring 2002, Mr Scobie did work expertise on the Daily Mirror and allegedly overheard then-editor Piers Morgan being instructed that info referring to Kylie Minogue and her boyfriend had come from voicemails.

“Mr Morgan was asking how confident they were in the reporting and was told that the information had come from voicemails,” Mr Scobie mentioned.

“I recall being surprised to hear this at the time, which is why it stuck in my mind.”

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Former Sunday Mirror reporter Dan Evans – who was described because the paper’s former “in-house hacker” – additionally appeared in court docket on Monday.

Mr Evans – who later joined the now-defunct News of the World, subsequently admitted to cellphone hacking, and was given a 10-month suspended jail sentence.

He alleged that “many people” at MGN titles have been concerned “in what I today honestly believe to be one of the longest and most developed corporate/criminal conspiracies in British history”.