How Harry’s Facebook messages disproved his hacking conspiracy

The Daily Mail’s Royal Editor Rebecca English exclusively reveals what it was like being taken to court by Prince Harry – and how she felt when the verdict landed. 

She also weighs in on the Duke’s chaotic visit to the UK and takes us behind the scenes at Buckingham Palace on the day the King’s patience finally snapped with his son. 

Also on the show is Richard Eden who says it is highly likely that Charles will meet his son while he is in the UK and that Meghan Markle will be joining her husband later this week for an Invictus Games event in Birmingham. 

But what about the children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet? Royal biographer and columnist Robert Hardman makes up today’s panel and takes us through the engagements the royals have kept themselves busy with this week. From painting snails at the London Zoo to driving a tank in Bovington. 

Plus why did Princess Catherine’s hospital visit go viral this week? AND Charlotte Griffiths speaks out about her time with Prince Harry and the Facebook messages that were dredged up during the trial. Will this article have consequences for the Sussexes’ PR machine? 

Harry’s Legal Battle Comes to an End 

Rebecca English: Prince Harry is in the UK, but his trip has been antagonizing palace officials. Rebecca English tells us about her experience after Harry took her to court. We discussed Charlotte Griffiths bombshell article about the Duke of Sussex. 

It’s been an extraordinary week and this will be an extraordinary show.

Now, while the King looked, as Richard suggested, like he might be going into battle, his younger son was finding out the result of his own battle of the legal variety with Associated Newspapers. That’s the company that owns the Daily Mail and indeed this channel. 

There was a trial earlier this year, and the judge issued his judgment earlier this week. In it, he dismissed all the claims. 

The judge also praised the journalist who gave evidence. He described Rebecca here as an impressive and honest witness. 

Now I know a lot of you in the comments have been asking about this over the past few months, but on the advice of lawyers, we’ve been unable to talk about the story on the show until now.

Campfire Chats and Forgotten Interviews 

Sam Greenhill: Prince Harry had alleged phone hacking in relation to a story I had contributed to. 

This is going back a quarter of a century, and the story was about him sitting around a campfire in Botswana at a game reserve, drinking beer and telling some complete strangers, tourists, about how he had fallen in love with a girl, which turned out to be Chelsea Davy. 

He couldn’t stop talking about it, and one of these tourists phoned the Daily Mail. This is 25 years ago or something.

I was asked to speak to this guy, which I did. Simple as that. Prince Harry alleged the story must have come from phone hacking and there was absolutely no evidence for that. 

We’ve been here before with Prince Harry. I’ve been here before with him. I mean him stating something as phone hacking, when actually he seems to have forgotten that he said it to himself. 

I remember his 18th birthday, and to mark it, he he gave a press interview and I spent the whole day with him. 

Golf Clubs and Birthday Parties 

We visited some charities. We went to the Football West Ham’s old stadium, Upton Park, and we took it in turns in goal, taking penalties. 

Then we went back to Saint James’s Palace and had tea in the banqueting room, and that’s where he gave me an interview, which he then totally forgot. 

Now, I’m not saying it was particularly memorable, but it wasn’t phone hacking. He told me things like Earl Spencer, his uncle, had given him a set of golf clubs for his birthday, and how Prince Charles had offered him an 18th birthday party.

But he didn’t want one because he had school the next day, things like that. 

Years later, Harry said this information must have come from journalists hacking his voicemails. 

It was absurd. I mean, he said these things to me in front of at least three Palisades. That was just one example. 

Some of my colleagues spent much more time with him. One spent a whole weekend in a country house party with him, and others have met him and his friends countless times, so it never made any sense to me why he was so adamant that only phone hacking could explain stories that were published about him.

The Facebook Evidence 

Charlotte Griffiths: I’m Charlotte Griffiths, and I’m the person who received those embarrassing Facebook messages from Prince Harry, which I exchanged very many years ago in 2011. I’m about the same age as Prince Harry. I was in his wider social circle for a time. 

I’d been spending time in a beta with a few of his mates. Stayed in touch with a couple of them. They’d invited me on a country weekend. He was there for the whole weekend. 

Me and a big bunch of my mates all hung out. On the way home from this weekend, he sent me a Facebook message introducing himself, and I couldn’t really believe it when I read that he’d slid into my DMs, but I thought no more about it. 

He said that his friendship circle was watertight, and I’m afraid I did have the evidence in Facebook messages that had long forgotten about were very embarrassing. 

I had the evidence that he actually slid into my DMs all those years ago and was very open and talked about all sorts of extraordinary things with somebody he barely knew. 

In fact, if he’d googled me and he did use my surname in the messages, he would have known that I worked for the Mail on Sunday. That’s why those messages came to light, and I probably would have taken them to my grave.

The Weekend Stand-Off 

Rebecca English: The palace, were repeatedly told they were not going to come and stay. It is not safe for us, even though it’s a very big palace with this Buckingham Palace to state. The real scandal happened over the weekend. 

On Saturday morning, my understanding from Buckingham Palace is that once again Harry replied to say we’ve been looking at security options. We still don’t think it’s safe. No thank you. 

In the afternoon, they suddenly got a message saying I will take up your offer after all for one night Tuesday, which they were a little bit suspicious about because without going into too much detail, that was the day that judgment was being handed down in the Daily Mail’s case. 

I think people started putting two, two together and feeling that very strongly that the palace should not be allowed to be compromised in this way. 

Now, the decision will already be made to say, look, no. But he said no. They stood the staff down. I know there’s been a lot of incredulity about this because people go, well, it’s a 700 room palace. 

The twist happened on on Monday when suddenly, out of the blue, his spokesman announced, and this was broadcast and everything from the BBC, our national broadcaster all around the world, that Harry had accepted the King’s offer. 

What was so significant was within minutes of that very strong guidance being put out by Buckingham Palace, saying, this is not right, and it’s not right that they had not heard an acceptance from him. 

There had been no he had told them no all the way along and that when he had accepted they said, I’m sorry it’s too late. 

We can’t facilitate you now. You could tell that that statement came out very soon afterwards was pithy. They were clearly very annoyed by this.

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