Harry and Meghan biographer Omid Scobie denies being the Sussexes’ ‘mouthpiece’

Harry and Meghan biographer Omid Scobie claimed yesterday that he was shown how to hack phones while doing an internship at a red newspaper.

He said he was also given a list of celebrities’ mobile numbers, but was never able to access their voicemails because it “seemed completely immoral.”

Mr Scobie also angrily insisted he is not the Sussexes’ ‘friend, mouthpiece, cheerleader’, as he testified for the Prince at the High Court.

In a dramatic confrontation, he denied having a “vested interest” in the Duke of Sussex’s case against a newspaper publisher for alleged phone hacking.

While taking to the witness stand, the author of the gushing biography Finding Freedom repeatedly dismissed the suggestion that his “sympathies” lay with Harry.

Prince Harry (pictured with his wife Meghan) and others are suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), publishers of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and The People, over stories they claim resulted from phone hacking or other illegal activities. information collection. The newspaper denies the allegations

The Duke and others are suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), publishers of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and The People, over stories they claim resulted from phone hacking or other illegal information gathering. The newspaper denies the allegations.

The court heard that while a journalism student in 2002, Mr Scobie gained work experience at the Daily Mirror, where he claimed to have witnessed then-editor Piers Morgan being told that a story about Kylie Minogue was ‘from voicemails’ come’.

Mr Scobie claimed he overheard the conversation between the editor and the women who ran his ‘3am Girls’ showbiz column, with whom he was ‘enthralled’.

The royal journalist also said that when he took up work experience at The People a few weeks earlier, he was given a list of cell phone numbers of celebrities and shown how to access voicemails.

He was “stunned by what seemed completely immoral and I never completed the task,” the judge was told.

Mr Scobie rejected suggestions that he had “innocently created a false memory” or knowingly fabricated one.

The papers’ KC Andrew Green told him, “Mr. Scobie, this incident didn’t happen, did it?” No journalist would have asked you, a student intern for a week, to hack phones.’

Mr Scobie, author of the gushing biography Finding Freedom (pictured), repeatedly dismissed suggestions that his ‘sympathies’ lay with Harry

Mr Scobie told the court he had ‘never socialised’ with Prince Harry, adding that he is ‘literally a member of the press’ and doing his job

Mr Scobie said: ‘You’d be surprised at what happens’, adding that he took offense at the suggestion.

Mr Green said Mr Scobie was close to Harry and Meghan and that his career had benefited from his unparalleled access to the pair, who were the subject of his “relentlessly flattering” 2020 book Finding Freedom.

Mr Green said, “You have every interest in helping the Duke of Sussex, if the opportunity arises, don’t you?”

Mr. Scobie, editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar magazine and a royal contributor to ABC News and Good Morning America, hit back: “No. Because what I’m doing now is giving ammunition to tabloids to call me his friend.

“I never socialized with him. I am literally a member of the press doing my job.

“I’ve been called friend, mouthpiece, cheerleader – when my approach is no different from that of any other royal correspondent with an area of ​​interest.”

Mr. Scobie was challenged about how closely he worked with Harry and Meghan on Finding Freedom.

In testimony before the Supreme Court in 2020, during a case Meghan fought against The Mail on Sunday over a letter she had written to her father Thomas Markle, Mr Scobie insisted that the Duke and Duchess had not directly participated in his book. .

Mr Green suggested that Mr Scobie had ‘intentionally omitted’ from his testimonial that Harry and Meghan had ‘collaborated’ on the book through their press spokesperson, to which the author replied: ‘You mean the royal family cooperates with the press every time? is a question going to a communications officer?’

In the first week of the seven-week trial, the court was told Prince Harry is “a long way” from proving “outlandish allegations” that he was a victim of hacking by Mirror publisher.

The newspaper group labeled parts of the Duke of Sussex’s case as “ambitious and unrealistic” and riddled with “totally non-existent” evidence.

Harry and three others claim they were targeted by journalists at the Mirror titles during an “industrial-scale” period of illegal information gathering, including phone hacking, in the 1990s and 2000s.

The case continues.