Prince William's messages to Harry and Kate 'hacked by News of the World'

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/19/william-harry-kate-royal-messages-hacked-news-world

Version 0 of 1.

The News of the World intercepted and recorded intimate phone messages left between Prince William, Prince Harry and Kate Middleton, the Old Bailey has heard.

The voicemails included William using a pet name for his future wife and describing to her how he had nearly been shot during a training exercise, and a message for his brother in which he put on a high-pitched voice and pretended to be Prince Harry's then girlfriend, Chelsy Davy.

Recordings of the messages were found by police in August 2006 when they searched the homes of the newspaper's royal editor, Clive Goodman, and its specialist private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire. On Thursday, at the phone-hacking trial, transcripts of the tapes were entered into evidence for the first time.

Prosecutors linked eight royal messages to internal News of the World emails, payment records and stories published by the paper in 2006.

In one message, left by William for Middleton on 26 January 2006 when he was a cadet at Sandhurst, he said he had just got back from a night navigation exercise: "I've been running around the woods of Aldershot chasing shadows and getting terribly lost, and I walked into some other regiment's ambush, which was slightly embarrassing because I nearly got shot. Not by live rounds but by blank rounds, which would be very embarrassing though."

He ended by saying that he would be on another exercise the following day, adding: "I might send a cheeky text message cos I might have my phone with me."

The next day, Goodman emailed his editor, Andy Coulson, to tell him of the story which, the jury were told, was then published in Goodman's Black Adder column. During the following week, Goodman and Coulson exchanged emails about payments for "Matey" who, the crown alleges, was Glenn Mulcaire. Goodman sent Coulson a list of stories for which "Matey" had been paid, including the item about William and the night exercise.

The jury were told of two other voicemails left by the prince for Middleton in January 2006. In one he told her he had just picked up her messages and added "Oh, my little babykins!" In the other, he told her he was feeling "a bit shitty" after a couple of nasty days on exercises and that he might try to go beagling – hare chasing – with friends later that day.

On 28 January, Goodman emailed Coulson to suggest a story about William beagling, adding that it was "going to be very tricky to stand up". Goodman suggested he might put it to St James's Palace's director of communications, Paddy Harverson: "Want me to put it to Paddy as a plain fact, eyewitness account? They visited the pub first so a punter could easily have seen them and called it in." Coulson, three minutes later, replied: "Yes."

The jury was shown the transcript of a recording found at Goodman's home in August 2006, in which he spoke to a palace press officer about the story, commenting that she sounded "worryingly like Rebekah Wade" and then arguing that the prince's beagling outing was against Sandhurst rules. That weekend, the jury were told, the News of the World published a story about William and the beagling which included the claim that he was in the habit of calling Middleton "Babykins".

On the evening of 23 February 2006, the prince left a message for Middleton: "It's now six o'clock, just gone six, but I don't think I'm probably going to be able to leave here till about seven. I've got about another hour worth of stuff to do, just little bits and pieces but hopefully i should be able to leave by seven at the latest so I'll give you a buzz when I'm in the car." He added that he hoped to be with her "by quarter to eight at the latest."

At 7.17 that evening, Goodman emailed his news editor, Ian Edmondson: "William is out of Sandhurst tonight. He is due to leave 7ish and is heading straight to see Kate. From the inf I've got, it looks like he's going to her parents' place near Reading. The London address is just too far away for the ETA."

On 9 April 2006, the News of the World published a story headlined "Chelsy tears strip off Harry" which claimed Davey had been angry with the prince for flirting with a stripper in a club. The story claimed William had left a message on his brother's phone, pretending to be Chelsy, saying: "I see you had a lovely time without me. But I miss you so much, you big ginger."

The jury were told that in August 2006, police searching Mulcaire's home found a tape on which a male, speaking in a female voice, left a message on Harry's phone: "Hi. It's Chelsy here. I just want to say I miss you so much and I think you're the best-looking ginger I've ever seen."

Three of the messages were left for royal staff. One was from a doctor who had been treating Prince Harry for minor injuries, which was left on the phone of the prince's personal private secretary, Helen Asprey. The injuries became the subject of a story by Goodman. Two were left for Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, private secretary to Harry and Prince Charles. In one, Harry asked for help with an essay at Sandhurst, a request which was published soon afterwards by Goodman, the jury heard.

In the other message left for Lowther-Pinkerton, the commandant of Sandhurst, General Andrew Ritchie, said he wanted to chat about "an incident at the ball last night". On 14 April 2006, Goodman emailed his deputy editor, Neil Wallis, reporting that Ritchie had made the call the previous day and claiming that "William and his group were massively drunk and upsetting other guests with their braying Hooray Henry antics. One of his friends was strutting around the hall pretending to be a brigadier… William himself was sent upstairs to bed before the ball ended."

Wallis replied: "Remind me how we know this is true." Dealing with the same story, Edmondson emailed Goodman suggesting he add an extra detail about the prince's behaviour, to which Goodman replied: "That's a bit too much knowledge to expose to a wider readership." The News of the World then published a story about the incident at the ball. The jury were told that a payment of £3,000 was subsequently authorised for the story for a source known as "Alexander", who is said by the crown to be Mulcaire.

The jury were shown further internal emails including one from Goodman to Coulson, dated 23 February 2005, in which he claimed that the Sun had discussed a story with Harverson and that it had then leaked to the Daily Mail. "The Sun are keen to blame Harverson," he wrote. "He's a complete halfwit, but what would leaking a Sun tale get him? The Mail is never going to cut Charles a break no matter how much help Paddy gives them. More likely to be closer to home. Or someone hacking Paddy's voicemail? I can see if thats poss or if its massively password protected."

Andy Coulson, Stuart Kuttner and Rebekah Brooks [formerly Wade] deny conspiring to intercept communications. The jury began a Christmas break on Thursday night. The trial is due to continue on Monday 6 January.

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.