Harry talks about supposed paranoia of his late mother Princess Diana

Prince Harry tells hacking trial he suffered same fears as Princess Diana and was paranoid of his friends betraying him

• Prince Harry said in court papers how he had heard late mother called ‘paranoid’
• But Harry said she was actually ‘fearful of what was actually happening to her’

Prince Harry has said his late mother Princess Diana’s supposed paranoia mirrored his own fears of friends betraying him, as his High Court evidence began today.

Harry told how he had heard his late mother called ‘paranoid’, but she was actually ‘fearful of what was actually happening to her and now I know that I was the same’. 

The Duke, whose mother died after a car crash in Paris in 1997, also said that his ‘acute paranoia of being constantly under surveillance was not misplaced after all’.

Harry, who also gave evidence at the court In London today, claimed articles about him as a teenager made him feel constantly suspicious of those close to him – including former nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke and his friend Mark ‘Marko’ Dyer.

In his witness statement, Harry said: ‘I doubted the loyalty of Tiggy and even Marko, who I really looked up to. My brother and I even stopped talking to Marko for a long period of time. I can see how much of my life was wasted on this paranoia.’

He is suing Mirror Group Newspapers for damages, claiming journalists at its titles were linked to methods including phone hacking, so-called ‘blagging’ or gaining information by deception, and use of private investigators for unlawful activities.

Princess Diana with her two sons Prince Harry (left) and Prince William (right) in April 1992 

Prince Harry arrives at the High Court in London today before giving evidence to the hearing 

A court artist’s sketch of Prince Harry being cross examined by Andrew Green KC today

In his statement which was released today, Harry referenced an article in the Sunday Mirror on January 5, 2003 which had the headline ‘Harry – I’m going to join Army’.

READ MORE Prince Harry brands UK government ‘rock bottom’, calls Diana’s butler a ‘two-faced s***’ and says stories that ‘James Hewitt was his father’ made him fear ‘he’d be ousted from the Royal Family’ in statement at Mirror publisher hacking case

The Duke said the story revealed ‘details of private conversations I had with my father about my future, mainly that I didn’t want to go to University and would rather join the Army’.

He said there was a ‘surprising amount of accurate detail in the article’, and said he would have spoken to Mr Dyer about these conversations, which was ‘likely to have been on the phone and in voicemails as I was still at Eton where I boarded’. 

Harry also said he ‘certainly wasn’t talking openly to my friends, or the Palace, about this kind of thing’ and it would have ‘been only a few people that I trusted the most’.

He also said: ‘I wasn’t talking to Harry Legge-Bourke about any of this, so I’m not sure why he’s mentioned at all.’

Harry then claimed articles ‘such as this, which claimed to have comments from people close to my life, contributed to the general feeling of paranoia that I was so used to living with, a feeling of not being able to trust anybody’.

He continued: ‘It’s bad enough at any age, but looking back, 18 years old is so young to feel constantly suspicious of everyone around you.

‘At various points, I doubted the loyalty of Tiggy, Harry Legge-Bourke and even Marko, who I really looked up to.’

Harry claimed he and his brother Prince William ‘even stopped talking to Marko for a long period of time’.

He added: ‘It was upsetting to be questioning someone who played such an important role in my adolescence, and I felt as though I knew I could trust him but ‘on the nose’ information appearing in print, that only he knew about, convinced us otherwise. It was so conflicting.

‘It’s only now, realising what the defendant’s journalists were doing, and how they were getting their information, that I can see how much of my life was wasted on this paranoia. 

Harry claimed articles about him made him feel constantly suspicious of those close to him – including his friend Mark ‘Marko’ Dyer (pictured at Kensington Palace in June 2016) 

Harry also said he became suspicious of his former nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke (pictured at his passing-out Sovereign’s Parade at Sandhurst Military Academy on April 12, 2006)

‘I’ve always heard people refer to my mother as paranoid, but she wasn’t. She was fearful of what was actually happening to her and now I know that I was the same.’

READ MORE Prince Harry statement in full: Duke’s extraordinary witness evidence at High Court hacking case addresses James Hewitt, Paul Burrell, British MPs and his late mother Princess Diana

Harry also wrote in the statement that articles which allegedly involved unlawful information gathering ‘created a huge amount of paranoia in my relationships’.

He continued: ‘I would become immediately suspicious of anyone that was named in a story about me, whether it was Mark Dyer, Tiggy or her brother, Harry, for example.

‘I felt that I couldn’t trust anybody, which was an awful feeling for me especially at such a young age.

‘As I am uncovering the extent of the unlawful activities carried out by MGN’s journalist and senior executives towards me, I feel somewhat relieved to know that my paranoia towards my friends and family had, in fact, been misplaced, although feel sad for how much it impacted my adolescence.’

He also made 118 mentions in his statement about his first serious girlfriend Chelsy Davey.

He blamed the media attention for Miss Davey dumping him, saying: ‘We could also never understand how private elements of our life together were finding their way into the tabloids, and so our circle of friends became smaller and smaller. I remember finding it very hard to trust anyone, which led to bouts of depression and paranoia.

‘Of course, now that we know that this information was invariably obtained by unlawful means, these friendships were lost entirely unnecessarily, which is a matter of huge regret for me.

Harry has blamed the Press attention for his girlfriend Chelsy Davey (pictured in 2009) dumping him, saying that ultimately she ‘made the decision that a Royal life was not for her’

‘Ultimately, these factors led her to make the decision that a Royal life was not for her, which was incredibly upsetting for me at the time.’

The Duke also said in his written evidence that he felt ‘physically sick’ to learn there were eight payments to private investigators in relation to Diana.

The duke said that there were 135 separate payments related to him, and a further 154 for his associates.

He continued: ‘I’m shocked and appalled at the sheer volume of payments made by MGN titles to private investigators, who are known in this litigation to have used voicemail interception and other unlawful information-gathering techniques to obtain private information about their targets, for private information about me and my associates over a 10-year period, from 1999, when I was still very much a minor, to 2009.’

The duke added: ‘I now realise that my acute paranoia of being constantly under surveillance was not misplaced after all.’

‘I was upset to discover the amount of suspicious call data and the 13 private investigator payments for Chelsy.

‘Had she not been in a relationship with me, she would never have had to endure such a horrific experience at the hands of MGN’s journalists.

‘There are even eight private investigator payments made in relation to my mother, which I have only learnt of since bringing my claim. This makes me feel physically sick.’

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