Harry objected to an article published by the Daily Mirror on September 28 2008, detailing Harry’s potential return to serve with the British military in Afghanistan.
Green claimed that “there had been quite considerable public debate” about whether a member of the royal family should serve on the front line in Afghanistan.
The prince agreed that the story was a source of legitimate public interest.
“I had been withdrawn from Afghanistan in March 2008 because of the security threat my regiment faced. There was supposed to be a press embargo, and in an attempt to keep this in place, it had been agreed that subject to certain details being kept strictly confidential, some members of the British media would join me for a period to take exclusive photographs and footage,” Harry claimed in his witness statement.
“Even in a warzone, I couldn’t escape the media. Unfortunately, an Australian journalist revealed my location and an American website broke the press embargo. A target had been placed on my head and I was withdrawn,” he said.
The Mirror article Harry objected to, headlined “Soldier Harry’s Taliban,” concerned the prince’s potential redeployment some months later, once it was safer for him to do so.
Green argued that this article did not concern Harry’s private life, since the question of his redeployment “was a military decision.”
“It was about your professional life, not your private life,” Green said.
“Are you suggesting that while I was in the army, everything was available to write about?” Harry responded.
The prince claimed that the article did concern his private life, since the article contained “a huge quote from a royal source.”
Green contested that “there would have been any number of people around you who knew your feelings about wanting to go back.”
“This is exactly the sort of information that a well-connected royal editor would have been able to source,” he said.
Harry disagreed, saying that he did not widely share his feelings about wanting to return to serve with the military. Instead, when he was “down and frustrated,” he would confide in Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, his private secretary.
The prince claimed that he suspects that Lowther-Pinkerton’s phone was hacked by MGN journalists.
When asked why Lowther-Pinkerton had not been made available to give evidence, the prince claimed that he “would prefer to have a quiet family life” after settling his own phone hacking case against News Group Newspaper in a separate trial.
Prince Harry back in court to give evidence in phone hacking case - CNN
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