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Prince Harry‘s court case against Britain’s Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN )over alleged phone hacking is historic. The last member of the royal family to appear in a courtroom before the duke was Princess Anne for an attack by her dog in 2002. But the last royal to testify in a court case was back in 1891 when Queen Elizabeth II‘s great-grandfather, King Edward VII, did.

On June 7, 2023, Harry was cross-examined for the second day in a row. While some don’t believe that his testimony and lack of evidence have done him any favors, it should be noted that this is a civil case, not a criminal one and therefore the burden of proof is different. The prince and his legal team only need to convince Judge Timothy Fancourt on the balance of probabilities that he was a victim of unlawful information gathering, rather than prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, a royal expert is claiming that the only thing the duke’s testimony is proving is that he “blames the media for everything that has gone wrong in his life.”

Prince Harry leaving the Mirror Group phone hacking trial at the Rolls Building at High Court in London
Prince Harry leaving the Mirror Group phone hacking trial at the Rolls Building at High Court in London | Neil Mockford/GC Images

Author says Harry blames the media for everything and is ‘hellbent on revenge’

Royal watchers and experts paying attention to this case have been discussing Harry’s testimony and have drawn some conclusions.

Author, commentator, and royal correspondent for Vanity Fair and NBC Katie Nicholl spoke about what she thought came through in Harry’s testimony, and she didn’t mince words.

During an appearance on GB News Nicholl said: “We are talking about events alleged to have happened 20 years ago and I think it’s very interesting that you have his wife in America working on the relaunch of The Tig or whatever it’s going to be called … moving on with the next chapter, which I think is what everyone wants to see this couple doing, and Harry here sort of hellbent on getting this revenge.”

She continued: “He’s made it clear he wants to change the media landscape here in Britain. Now how he’s able to do that from his Montecito mansion we have yet to see. But this (case) is personal. This is something that goes back to his mother. He blames the media for everything that’s gone wrong in his life … He seems to want to lay everything at the door of the tabloids, and this is a very personal vendetta.”

Prince Harry, who a royal author says blames the media for everything and wants revenge, arrives to give evidence on day two of the Mirror Group Phone hacking trial
Prince Harry arrives to give evidence on day two of the Mirror Group Phone hacking trial | Kate Green/Getty Images

How Prince Harry said he would feel if found not to have been hacked

CBS News noted that while on the stand Harry was questioned about how he would feel if it was found that his phone was not hacked like he alleged.

“If the court were to find that you were never hacked by any MGN journalist, would you be relieved or would you be disappointed?” MGN lawyer Andrew Green asked.

“Well that would be speculating, and I’m not really sure if I would be relieved or disappointed,” Harry answered, before adding that he believes phone hacking was taking place at an “industrial scale across at least three papers” so he would “feel some injustice … if it wasn’t accepted.”

MGN denies it used illegal methods to gather stories about the prince.

There could be another legal battle on the horizon for the duke as a federal judge has given the Department of Homeland Security until June 13 to decide how it will handle The Heritage Foundation’s request via the Freedom of Information Act for Harry’s U.S. immigration records.