Prince Harry to tabloid newspaper's lawyer: 'Nobody wants to be phone hacked'

Prince Harry entered a London courtroom in a high-stakes bid to prove the publisher of the Daily Mirror tabloid had unlawfully snooped on his life.

He left the witness box Wednesday looking fatigued and with the outcome uncertain.

The Duke of Sussex said he was highly suspicious of how reporters obtained information about him for stories from 1996 to 2011 that had caused him anguish, but he had little to support his accusations. He said journalists used burner phones and destroyed records, relying on such evidence proved in other cases.

"I believe that phone hacking was at an industrial scale across at least three of the papers at the time," he asserted in his second day of testimony in the High Court. "That is beyond any doubt."

At the end of nearly eight hours of cross-examination over two days, defense lawyer Andrew Green asked if Harry was aware of any evidence that indicated he had his phone hacked over a period of 15 years.

"No," Harry said. "That's part of the reason why I'm here."

Harry is on a mission to reform the British media, and the phone hacking allegations are central to his legal battles against publishers.

The case against Mirror Group Newspapers, which has paid more than $125 million to settle hundreds of unlawful information-gathering claims is the first of his three hacking lawsuits to go to trial. He says tabloid publishers invaded his privacy by eavesdropping on voicemails and hiring private investigators to report on the smallest details of his life, causing him great emotional turmoil.

His lawyer said he wasn't on a vendetta against the media, but is seeking accountability, though Harry's 55-page witness statement suggested otherwise.

"How much more blood will stain their typing fingers before someone can put a stop to this madness?" he wrote.

His composure in court betrayed none of that acrimony.

He spoke softly and didn't lose his patience as witnesses often do under cross-examination — even as he was repeatedly asked to explain how an article had caused him pain if he wasn't certain he had read it at the time it was published.

"Most of the articles I don't remember seeing," he said. "Most of them were equally distressing then and more distressing today going through this process."

The spectacle of the first senior member of the royal family to testify in court in more than 130 years drew dozens of reporters, photographers and curious onlookers lucky to get a seat.

Green, who has a reputation for his brutal cross-examinations, took a respectful but direct approach as he tried to dismantle Harry's allegations.

Green asked Harry if he really thought that journalists would be foolish enough to risk getting caught phone hacking after a News of the World reporter and a private investigator went to prison for such activity in 2007.

"I believe the risk is worth the reward for them," Harry answered.

Green, who has said Harry's phone wasn't hacked, asked the witness if he would be relieved or upset if the judge reached the same conclusion.

"To have a decision against me ... given that Mirror Group have admitted hacking, yes, it would feel like an injustice," Harry responded.

"So you want to have been phone hacked?" Green said.

"Nobody wants to be phone hacked," Harry replied.

Justice Timothy Fancourt, who will deliver the verdict later in the year, asked how long Harry had noticed unusual activity on his phone that he only later attributed to hacking.

"From the moment I had a mobile phone. … It never stopped," Harry said. "I remember a lot of missed calls that lasted one second, I remember a lot of people asking me, 'Did you get my voicemail?'"

Harry's skepticism of the press included suggestions that anonymous sources were fabricated and extended to people quoted by name.

More than once, he said that seeing something in print attributed to someone "doesn't mean that it's true" and said false information was added to stories "to put people like myself off the scent."