Professor Paul Wragg discusses Prince Harry case on BBC News

The High Court is hearing a seven-week long trial into allegations from Prince Harry and others that their phones were hacked by journalists from Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).

The School of Law’s Paul Wragg, Professor of Media Law, spoke on BBC News yesterday (5 June) to discuss Prince Harry’s well-publicised phone hacking claim against the Mirror Group.  

Prince Harry alleges that the newspaper was complicit in illegally obtaining private information that then informed articles about the Prince, in the period of 1996 to 2011. 

Central to this claim has been the information the newspaper obtained about his relationship with then girlfriend Chelsy Davy (a University of Leeds, School of Law alumna). The Prince is the first Royal to testify in Court in over one hundred years as he appears as a witness during the trial.  

Speaking on BBC News, Professor Wragg said that the case was significant for its portrayal of press malpractice.  

The public should take note of the reasons why Prince Harry is bringing this claim. Press freedom stands for accountability. It is about holding the powerful to account. The press can act as a powerful public watchdog. But what happens when the press themselves are abusing their power? If Prince Harry is right, we shall have evidence of wrongdoing on an industrial scale, and his claim, and those like them, will be a crucial means of holding the powerful press to account.

Click here to hear the interview.