The Duke of Sussex has been ordered to explain why messages with his ghostwriter were destroyed after the publication of his memoir Spare when they could be relevant to his legal battle with the publishers of the Sun.
Any claim for damages must be lodged within six years, with Harry having launched his legal action in 2019. If he believed he had a potential claim against NGN before 2013, then the case could be dismissed on the grounds it was filed too late. “It seems to me inherently likely that in the course of discussing at length the material for the duke’s autobiography, matters would have been said that related to the parts of Spare in which unlawful information gathering in relation to newspapers is discussed.”
The judge also expressed “real concern” that the majority of searches for relevant documents had been conducted by “the duke himself in California”, rather than by his solicitors. He said that apart from the articles Harry complained about, and documents relating to his earlier application for the case to be dismissed, the duke had “only disclosed five documents”, adding: “That is rather remarkable and gives me cause for concern about the disclosure exercise.