Prince Harry accused of ‘obfuscation’, destroying evidence in lawsuit against Murdoch papers

A lawyer for the publisher of The Sun tabloid on Thursday accused Prince Harry of engaging in “shocking” and “extraordinary” obfuscation by destroying evidence it was seeking in his lawsuit claiming that the newspaper violated his privacy by unlawfully snooping on him.

Anthony Hudson said at High Court that the Duke of Sussex had deliberately destroyed text messages with the ghostwriter who penned his bestselling memoir, “Spare.”

A lawyer for Harry said News Group Newspapers (NGN) was engaging in a “classic fishing expedition” by seeking documents they should have sought much sooner for a trial scheduled in January.

“NGN’s tactical and sluggish approach to disclosure wholly undermines the deliberately sensational assertion that the claimant [Harry] has not properly carried out the disclosure exercise,” his lawyer, David Sherborne, said in court papers.

“This is untrue. In fact, the claimant has already made clear that he has conducted extensive searches, going above and beyond his obligations.”

He said the suggestion Harry was withholding or destroying material was the “height of hypocrisy”, saying NGN had deliberately deleted millions of emails as part of a way to hide incriminating evidence.

Hudson said Harry had created an “obstacle course” to getting documents it was seeking from his former lawyer and staff when Harry was a working member of the royal family.