The Royals with Roya and Kate - The Prince vs the press: emotional Harry gives evidence in High Court

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

Prince Harry has been in the High Court this week in a major privacy case against Associated Newspapers Ltd, the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. Roya Nikkhah reports from court as Harry gives evidence and the paper’s lawyers push back on claims of unlawful information gathering. Meanwhile, Kate Mansey has been in Scotland with the rest of the senior royals, as the working monarchy keeps its distance. Plus, royal diplomacy is back in the spotlight: Kensington Palace confirms the Prince of Wales will make his first official visit to Saudi Arabia next month, as questions swirl over the timing - and politics - of the much anticipated US state visit.Image: Getty Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the Royals. I'm Roy Nicar, Royal Editor of the Sunday Times. And I'm Kate Manse, Royal Editor of the Times. This week, Prince Harry has appeared at the High Court in a major privacy case against Associated Newspapers Limited, the publishers of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. I've been in court in London as Harry gave evidence in a long-running claim alleging unlawful information gathering, allegations the publisher strongly denies. And at the same time, the rest of the book. the royal family have been, well, very deliberately elsewhere. I've been north of the border in Scotland with the king and the queen and with the Prince and Princess of Wales as they carried out

a full programme of official engagements. And that distance is not just physical, it's symbolic too. Because while the trial's ongoing, the palace is putting clear separation between Harry's legal battle and the work of the monarchy. So what does that moment tell us about Harry's fight with the press and how far removed that fight is from the institution? he once represented. So, nothing's ever quite on the Royal Front, Roya. No. But particularly not this week.

So let's begin in London, where Prince Harry was in Court 76 in the Royal Courts of Justice. And Roya, you've been following the case. What is it all about? I've finally found my way around the Royal Courts of Justice because it's quite amazed.

Well, so he has been in court with a lot of the other claimants. There are seven in total. And as we talked about last week, they were very keen to all be there together for the first few days in a show of strength. So Harry has been in court alongside Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost, Sir Simon Hughes, the former Lib Dem MP, Sir Elton John and David Furnish have been watching remotely. Baroness Doran Lawrence has been watching and will appear in court on Friday, we believe, and into next week.

All of them have made allegations that Associated Newspers Limited, carried out activities, has started going back quite some years now of unlawful information gathering. So things like listening on to conversations. on landlines, phone tapping, voicemail interception, blagging. So getting hold of things like flight details and person information through blagging companies, all of which A&L is pushing back very strongly on and fighting very vehemently. But it has been an extraordinary week because we have seen Harry there sitting, listening very intently to the evidence is put forward by his barrister David Sherbourne,

being cross-examined very scrupulously by Anthony White, Casey. who is very methodical and very calm. There have been high emotions. I've just come from court where Liz Hurley has been giving evidence. Very emotional, a lot of tears in court this morning. Harry was tearful yesterday. So it's high drama and it's high stakes. Well, it's high stakes indeed, isn't it?

Because Harry is putting himself out there. It'd been 130 years, hadn't it, since we'd seen a member of the royal family take the stand at the high court when he appeared in 2023. But now we're sort of more used to it. Now, here he is again, you know, giving evidence, essentially. So here he is being questioned.

Had to swear on the Bible and answer the questions that were put to him by the defendant's barrister, Anthony White, who you mentioned. And that was so interesting, wasn't it, to see, because at points he seemed to be touchy, you know, he... It was combative. Yeah, and the judge had to say, you know, you have to stick to the questions. You know, you're here to what you do, what a lot of people do in this box, and you're going off on a tangent.

you actually have to stick to what you're being asked and stick to the evidence. Now it comes down to the fact that he thinks that unlawful news gathering was used, wasn't it, to get details about his private life, about his ex-girlfriends like Chelsea Davy, the defendants are claiming that, you know, those, it was just good old-fashioned journalism.

People went out to parties and spoke to his friends and that he had kind of friends who would sometimes leak or chat about what he was up to and that's how it went into the paper. But then he's arguing, no, that's not the case. There were things that could only have come from illegal activities. I mean, what was his demeanour when he took the stand, do you think? Combative, emotional, at times, I think, bewildered some of the questions he was being asked

when we looked back to the evidence that been presented on Monday and Tuesday before he took to the stand on Wednesday. And you're right, there were moments where it felt very similar to 2003, the mirror trial. And, you know, there were times during there where he went off-peased and he did again this week, because there were monologues he delivered things that he said he wanted to say. He wanted to say his peace in court that didn't necessarily answer the questions. He wanted to land a few points that he wasn't being asked about. And I thought Mr. Justin Nicklin was very good at keeping him quite courteously back in his lane. And I think, you know, his demeanour was you can see when he's answering certain questions and getting,

you can see physically the emotion sort of bubbling up. And, you know, yesterday when he finally finished his evidence and left court, you know, in quite a floor. in quite a flurry, quite emotional, a little bit tearful, you can see the emotional toll it's taken on him. In the same way that I think it's taken Liz Hurley by surprise this morning, I think she started very, very poised. And just, I think, going back over some of the information, it just, that emotion catches them.

So what Harry is alleging is that he's looking at, he's, you know, him and his team have presented 14 articles, which they say could possibly the information of them have been gleaned any other way than by unlawful information gathering. It's things like Chelsea Davy, you know, described as his first true love, South African, who he met and they had a long relationship. It's things like her flight details. We've seen in court the evidence being presented that, you know, reporters and private investigators were communicating about flight details.

And he's explained, both in his witness statement and on the stand, that he felt, and she felt hunted, that he couldn't have anywhere he went, people sort of knew how he was and he couldn't believe it. So you had Anthony White saying, well, your friends were in a leaky circle. There were people there who were talking to journalists. And the point that Harry made was, well, my friends might have spoken to journalist kitchen, but they would never give out information like that. Yeah. I mean, you're referring to that 2007 article that allegedly included details of Davies' flight times,

seating and travel arrangements that enabled them to get things into the paper. I mean, this dates back to 2001 to 2013, with many of these articles published in the Mail on Sunday diary column. Harry described it as disturbing, he said his every move and thought and feeling was being tracked to make money for the papers. Commercialisation of his life, I think. I think what else has been really interesting is looking at his complaints about why he's taking this action now in recent years and why he didn't do it then. Because that's one of the arguments that associated made in their opening statements. They're saying that, well, he should have complained earlier and certainly he should have done so within the time frame. but they're saying that the complaint is out of time

and they're also saying that the complaint is just wrong they're saying essentially nothing to see here really and that all the journalists use legitimate means to get those stories it was interesting to see Anthony White when the defendants, his actual opening comments were much shorter than people had thought they were going to be which meant that we saw Harry on the stand sooner than was really expected and I expect that speaks to associate its point

that there's nothing to see here we will defend and we'll tell you how these articles were obtained. The interesting thing about his justification or attempt an explanation as to why he didn't complain at the time speak so much to his life now versus his life inside the institution. Well, the institution is coming under a lot of flack. You know, this is Harry against the press. Which we're not surprised by are we.

We anticipated he would say things about the royal family, things about the institution that frustrated him, and we've heard all of that play out because he said again, it was always the never complain, never explained mantra. I was dissuaded from it. The palace very rarely corrected a story. They would occasionally come out. But actually, you know, in the later years,

we remember when Megan came into his life, his press actually at the time, Jason Kutavh, you know, put out that very strong statement about Megan as his girlfriend in 2016. So, you know, actually in the later years, it wasn't never a complaint, never explain. He did complain quite a lot. Yeah. And I mean, I think the problem with complaining,

as Tom Peck in his sketch in the Times today says, is that you do then end up having to do some explaining yourself as well. But it does very much feel that it's not just the press facing these allegations, that he's taking a pot shot at the institution, at the monarchy, at the men in grey suits that we know that he's railed against for so long. You know, we know that the late Queen's mantra really was, you know, it's first attributed to the 19th century Prime Minister Disraeli. Never complain, never explain.

and in his autobiography's spare, Harry turns out on his head. He calls it the family motto. And he's so angry about that even now. And that's really kind of bubbling out, isn't it? It's interesting, you know, he left six years ago from official royal duties. Like you say, the passion that you saw in the witness stand, that anger is still very much not very far beneath the surface, is it? And that's why it was always a joy to see Harry on public official engagement.

wasn't it? Because you really, what you see is what you get sometimes with Harry, that he would run over to the little kid and give them a high five. There'd always be fantastic pictures and things like that. Yesterday, he described it as, you know, that he wasn't friends with any journalists, so he had to perform in front of them. You know, he's described the institution in the past as like a kind gilded cage. And I think that was all coming out. I mean, certainly I didn't get the sense that he was reluctantly performing for an institution at the time. I don't think we'd never came. I never came. him across when he were covering him inside the institution. Because he always went over and above whatever he was really being asked to do. Now, right at the end, you talk about him being tearful.

I mean, how did that, what did he look like? What was he doing? Was he genuinely about to cry? Yes, I think he was. And you could hear it, you could hear his voice catching in his throat. He was blinking. He was flushed. And the manner in which he left very abruptly, you could see it wasn't, I didn't look at it and think that was a rehearsed explosion. I think he called himself by surprise. Very genuine. He also brought it back forward, didn't he? Because although this is historic, these are allegations of historic articles, he brought it right up to the present day and said that the press had made his life a misery, that this newspaper green has made his wife, Megan. Yeah. But I think that goes right to the heart of why, you know, again, when he met Megan and, you know,

the press relationship changed again, it's clearly triggered something in him. And I think that is still his sort of ultimate motivation is he feels, however long ago this happened, it's affected all my relationships, including the one with my wife. And he feels, you know, she's still hunted in a way now by the press. And he feels win or lose, at least I'd have said my bit and let everyone know how it's made us feel. Let everyone, including the palace, know how it's made him feel. Because we've had Harry Unstand before. We've had him in court before. We've had lots of different cases. against the press. Some have been settled out of court. Obviously, we had that very long-winded litigation that he launched against the home office over his UK police security. But this is the last

stand at the moment that we expect to see him. This could be the last time we see him in a UK court. And so I suppose that really, it felt like he was having his moment he was going to have his say and he was going to say exactly what he thought. He used really interesting language. He said it was disgusting. He thought some of the practices that he alleges. their newspaper group to have done. So much of what we have heard over the last few days in court has been about the impact of the press on the women in his life, the important women in his life. And again, to hear in his witness statement talk about his mother. I was about to say that goes right back to his mum. He goes right back to Dan. And he said in

his witness statement, following the death of my mother in 1997 when I was 12 years old and her treatment at the hands of the press, I have always had an uneasy relationship with them. However, as a member of the institution of policy was to never complain, never explain. That phrase again. And then he says there was no alternative. I was conditioned to accept it. So just hearing him heart back to his mother,

we know how he feels effectively that the press killed her. You know, she was pursue a paparazzi photographer. The car went into that tunnel in Paris in 97. But ever since then, he has not been the same person and his attitude towards the press, I think, will be forever shaped by that tragedy in 1997. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting how much of that is driving it, to how much of the institution.

And like you say, that kind of, he talked about, you know, the kind of traumatic element of reliving some of this stuff, didn't he? But it's interesting, he was given a different name as well by the defence in court yesterday because the court heard that he had used the moniker, Mr. Miss Chief, to talk to journalists through Facebook. Now, he said he'd never used that name. He said he didn't know if he'd ever been in touch with this particular journalist

over Facebook, but it seems that there was a connection that she had been to parties with him or a weekend away with him through, you know, they had a mutual friend in common, and that, you know, even though that she was part of the circle, and that's how they could have got information, just talking to people in and about his circle. At one point, they said, you know, this journalist has even been to some of the same clubs and venues that you've been to, and he sort of said, oh, good for her, tetually. But their argument, of course, is that Harry had people around him, you know, when he was younger, that were leaking information about him or certainly a bit more loose-lipped, let's say. So that was that interesting element that they were sort of putting it back into Harry's court

and saying, well, hang on, you've used the press, you know, you used this name, Mr. Mischief, to be able to liaise with a journalist and have your say. Now, he's denying that. but it was also an interesting element that perhaps is unexpected that came out. Yes. I mean, it was certainly put forward by Anthony. I didn't see any evidence to back it up. But we will see how that goes down. So where are we up to now?

This is just the start, isn't it, of a court case that's been scheduled for nine weeks. So what's happening now? So Liz Hurley is in the witness box today. I've been watching her give her events this morning. Harry's been back in court showing solidarity for her and with her. We expect the next major. witness to be Baroness Dorian Lawrence, who is scheduled to give a couple of days of evidence. And then a lot of the executives from the Daily Mail on a Sunday will give their evidence.

Well, Associated. Yeah, Associated will put up their witnesses. They said that people are lining up, didn't they, to come and have their food. It's a very long time. It feels like some of the evidence is moving much more quickly than we thought, but it will certainly go on for several weeks. And then, of course, there'll be a bit of a wait until the judge assimilates it all, processes it all, and hands down his judgment. So for the time being, the trial continues. The trial continues.

Watch this space. Coming up, while Prince Harry's in court, how are the rest of the royal family maintaining their distance? And royal diplomacy is back in the spotlight. Why has the UK government asked William to visit Saudi Arabia next month? While Harry's been in court in London, the rest of the royal family have been... Not in London.

Everywhere else, Kate. Very much not in London. Apart from... We did see the king briefly. at an engagement in London the other day but no time to see Harry is very much the feeling that we're being told by people in and around the palace

particularly while this case is ongoing they want to make sure that they are seen doing the day job. Business as usual. Now when I've been in court keep calm and carry on. You have been up in Scotland north of the border with them all. You've seen the king, the queen and the wellers. What have you been up to and what they've been doing? Well in Scotland

it was very much king and queen leading the charge on that first day right out of the blocks. So we saw the king in the Palace of Holyrood House hosting a reception with John Swinney, the First Minister of Scotland. He was tasting whiskey. He was told, careful, sir, you know, this is really rather strong stuff.

But he seemed undeterred and sampled a drama whiskey. And it was just very much your kind of standard bread and butter royal engagement for the king while he's on duties in Scotland. No feeling of any recognition of what's going on in London, certainly not kind of in front of the cameras. Even pesky journalists could, you know, read between the lines or interpret in a different way.

The Queen had a literacy event. So she's been patron of the National Literacy Trust since 2010. So she was at the National Library of Scotland where she met Dennis the Menace, the famous comic book character and even was put into a comic herself. And she was on really good form. You know, she was joking, doing all the committal staff, she had a go at drawing Dennis the Menace. And it did feel like a kind of a show of support for the institution.

probably knowing that they were going to come under fire even though they're taking pot shots at the press. Now, Associated newspapers, of course, is where Tom Parker Bowles, Camilla's son, has worked and been a columnist for many years as well. Although, of course, he's not involved in or named in any of the proceedings. It's nothing to do with him. That's an interesting connection, I guess.

And then the next day we had, Kate and William, come up. Curling. They came up for one day and... Curling and Stirling. He did some curling and then Stirling. again, associating themselves with Team G.B., which actually does very well in the Winter Olympics at Curling on the ice rink. And they had to go themselves, you know, the usual rivalry. It's a nice little thing they like to turn out.

We know that Kate and William liked to have their competitive. Kate had a go on the ice, which was fun. I mean, I was at the last engagement, which was at a pub, which is a community pub. Three or four miles east of Stirling, there's a place called Fallon, which is an old miners village. The One Point Willie loves popping into the pub for a point, doesn't he? One Point Willie has become half. pint willy though I have I'm sorry to to that's so disappointing yeah it's so

disappointing you never see oh fine Willie it's going from bad to worse he had he had half a pint of cider didn't even finish it and even Kate joked that he hadn't finished it because she said you'll have to finish your drink and he said oh no I'm on my best behaviour so far so normal for a royal engagement

but as they arrived we heard shouts but heckler was there outside the pub what did they say and the pub the heckler said how long have you about Andrew and Epstein. What did that feel like on the ground? It felt like a real moment of kind of how is this engagement going to go

because, you know, it could go one way or the other. Now, interestingly, I wondered if they were prepared for something like this because that final engagement was embargoed. Now, that means that nobody can talk about it. This was embargoed until departure, so we couldn't tell anybody about it. Nobody could reveal anything about it

until, you know, their royal highnesses had left the building. So, word obviously had got out around the local village anyway. And it was just a lone voice. It wasn't a movement. It wasn't a campaign. There weren't placards or anything like that.

But he was loud and he was clear. And it did seem to rattle them very briefly. And they went inside, as they were due to do. Now, William and Kate seemed to ignore it completely brilliantly. You know, put the game face on, went inside and went around. But as they left, I just saw William turn to Kate in the car. And I did wonder what he was saying to in the car afterwards. And I think those moments they can't, they don't brush off easily, I know, in private.

And I think that it's interesting how this has come to William's door now. Because it's happened to the King and Queen, hasn't it? Well, quite. We have had hecklers shouting at them when they've been doing walkabouts in the last few months about Andrew. And it is, I think you're right, it's interesting to see it now happening to William and Kate. It is one of those things that I think they can't control. You can't stop people calling things out when you're in public. And no one did.

It wasn't like a kind of, you know, a security guard went and kind of like jumped on him or anything. But interestingly, when they came out of the pub, he wasn't there anymore. Now the police had a word with him. They'd moved him on. They said no arrests were made. But it was very interesting when they came out of the pub.

There was lots of local people who were very pleased for them to be there. And Kate William did spend a long time talking to little children, bending down and chatting to them and things like that. Now, I think that's a really good contrast, isn't it? They didn't say anything about it. They didn't acknowledge it.

it happened, they moved on. That is, I suppose, the Wales is in their utmost, very professional way, doing their never-explained, never-complaintor, isn't it? That person said something. It might have briefly overshadowed the engagement. We carry on, we do our thing. And actually what made all the papers the next day,

slightly behind in the pecking order of Harry in court, was the lovely pictures of them. William holding his pint on the front of some of the papers, speaking up for pubs, championing pubs. We've got to stick up for them. But they just carried on with it, didn't they? The ship sailed onwards. They did, and it's not always been the case, of course.

There was a case when William couldn't resist, kind of fighting back. Do you remember when Harry went on Oprah Winfrey? They were talking about people within the family asking questions about what colour of skin, Megan and Harry's future child would be before Archie was born. In the aftermath of that, Kate and William, again, had to face the music with a bread-and-butter royal engagement. And somebody shouted, a journalist shouted, are you a racist family? Words to that effect. And he turned around and said, we are very much not a racist family.

that was just a kind of line in the sand that he was not going to respond to that. I mean, how do you respond to somebody talking about Andrew and Epstein? How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein? Then he said, are you covering up for Andrew? Uncomfortable. There's nothing you can do, apart from just to plow on with that engagement.

And they did it well, they styled it out. It was the final engagement other day, and after that they were gone. Which brings us on to another interesting job, Williams got coming up, of course. Yes, does. It was announced yesterday by Kensington Palace that he will go to Saudi Arabia

for a three-day visit in February. His first official visit to Saudi Arabia, we are expecting to see him do engagements in Riyadh and Alula in the desert, which is interesting because we are potentially also going to see him and the king visit America later this year. The state visit, of course, hasn't been officially announced, but is widely expected in the spring for the king to go, and then we think William may go into the summer

to do engagements around Independence Day. But Saudi Arabia is an interesting one. The official notice that came from Kensington Palace yesterday said that it would be a visit that has come at the request of Kirstehmus government that would focus on the improvement in relations over energy, trade, investment and coming up to 100 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. But Saudi Arabia is a very controversial place, however you look at it in terms of what has been going on there in the last few years. Human rights abuses. Human rights abuses, the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which has been, you know, widely accepted by most of the international community that Mohammed bin Salman, you know, was aware of that. There have been suggestions that he even authorised that. Of course, he has always denied that. Yeah, this was a journalist who's been a known critic of Saudi Arabia's government who went into the embassy.

The Saudi embassy in Istanbul and was murdered. Mohammed bin Salman acknowledged full responsibility for the murder of journalist Jamar Khashoggi in 2018 because it happened under his watch. So there will be all sorts of diplomatic tight ropes for William to walk on that trip. You know, it's not the first time he'll have been asked to do that. We've seen him do that in the Middle East. We've seen him do it all over the place. But, you know, I think... Does feel different, though.

It is different. Saudi Arabia is a country that will be hugely scrutinized that visit. I'm sure all of the engagements that we'll see will be extremely official and, you know, won't go anywhere near that. But in the same way that we had Mohammed bin Salman in the White House recently, you had the White House call there outright asking him about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and Donald Trump saying, don't ask my guest about that. Well, you know, if there is a similar kind of photo call with Prince William and MBS, who's to say that question isn't going to be asked by the media? And how would William respond to that? I think,

This is something that the Royal Family, you know, in a time where deference, I think, is going down. I think they might need to have a response to these sorts of things, perhaps, especially if you're standing there for a photo call and someone shout something out. The visit at this point in time just shows where we are in terms of international relationships and how much they change. Because after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the UK imposed sanctions on Saudi Arabia and Kirstama himself was very critical. of Boris Johnson's visit to Saudi Arabia in 2022. He then visited himself in 2024, and now he's asked the heir to the throne to visit on behalf of the government. We get just in a few short years.

In 22, Starmour was saying to Boris, you're going cap in hand to dictators as an energy policy because, of course, the oil-rich nation of Saudi Arabia was where Boris wanted to form an alliance. Now, fast forward a few years, and you've got Kirstarmer doing exactly the same thing. Now, you speak to people in and around the palace, and they'll say, well, William's going at the request of the government.

And they'll point to the fact that Kirstama went recently, and they'll point to the fact that Macron from France went recently. And they'll point to, you know, the White House that you just mentioned. But it is another case of, you know, royal family being dragged into hot waters, if you like. Meanwhile, in the space of 20 or hours, that stay visit that we talked about with Charles widely expected to go in April looked very under question, didn't it, when Trump came out at the beginning of the week and said, I'm slapping tariffs on all of you.

I'm slapping, you know, much bigger tariffs on the UK over your refusal to let me do a deal or take over Greenland. We then had the European allies come together and be extremely staunch in their defence. I know this wasn't acceptable. And, you know, we've had Trump in Davos in a huge climb down over that. And he gave that big speech yesterday saying, I can take it by force, but drummwell, pause. I won't take it by force. And then we later heard he's not going to impose those tariffs. He's climbed down.

down from those extra 10% tariffs. So it feels like whatever diplomacy has gone on behind the scenes there has worked and it feels now like that state visit by the King will go ahead, I think, pretty seemingly. I mean, I think everyone at the Palace expects that state visit to happen. I think it would be quite a sign for Stama to pull, you know, the King's visit. Now, interestingly, that nothing has actually been announced officially so they could probably maneuver something behind the seams without, you know, while saying... Without Trump taking offence? Impossible.

While saving face a little bit. They could maneuver the dates. You know, it happened the other time when Trump came over. And there's negotiations always about these visits going on, about when they're going to happen, how they're going to happen. But, you know, who's to say that couldn't have been a bit of a bargaining chip for Stama with regards to all this going on? And Greenland was always going to be a kind of a sticking point because obviously it's owned by Denmark.

We are going to come to the defence of a NATO ally. and if America wants to go out on its own, that puts everything into a different line. Well, we will be keeping a very close eye on the developments around both of those foreign visits. And as for Prince Harry's court case, we'll continue to watch it very closely, and you can follow our coverage at thetimes.com. As always, we'd be interested to know what you think of any of the stories we've discussed in today's episode, either comment or review wherever you're listening or watching. If you want to watch the podcast, we now have a dedicated YouTube channel.

We do. You can search Times Royals on YouTube and subscribe for new episodes, plus royal analysis and news from across the Times. Well, that's all for this week. Until next time, thank you for joining us on the Royals.