Piers Morgan is known as a staunch critic of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan
Markle
Lawyers representing a British tabloid newspaper group told
London's High Court on Tuesday that Prince Harry should receive a maximum of
just 500 pounds ($637) in damages for one admitted instance of unlawful
information gathering.
Harry is one of more than 100 people suing Mirror Group Newspapers
(MGN), the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People,
over allegations of phone-hacking and unlawful information gathering.
Their
lawyers allege unlawful activity was "widespread" at all three MGN newspapers
between 1991 and 2011.
Harry spent a day-and-a-half in the witness
box earlier this month, being grilled over allegations he had been unlawfully
targeted by MGN titles for 15 years from 1996, when he was a child.
His cross-examination, when he became the first senior British
royal to appear in a witness box for more than 130 years, began with an
apology from MGN's lawyer Andrew Green for one instance of unlawful
information gathering.
MGN admitted at the start of the trial in
May, which concludes this week, that on one occasion a private investigator
had been engaged to unlawfully gather evidence about Harry at a London
nightclub in 2004, for which it "unreservedly apologises".
However, the publisher argued in court filings released on Tuesday
that Harry "has failed to identify any evidence of voicemail interception
against him, nor any other evidence of unlawful information gathering in
respect of his private information", apart from the one incident it has
admitted.
"The Duke of Sussex should be awarded a maximum of 500
pounds given the single invoice naming him concerns enquiries on an isolated
occasion and the small sum on the invoice - 75 pounds - suggests enquiries
were limited," Green said.
According to journalist Rebecca Barry,
previously the judge questioned the absence of 29 key witnesses, including
Mirror editor Piers Morgan.
Harry's lawyer David Sherborne said it
was “Not so much Hamlet without the Prince - but Hamlet without the entire
Royal court of Denmark!”.
