LONDON - A private investigator who worked for the publisher of the Daily Mirror boasted he could "get the queen's medical records", a retired police officer on Wednesday (May 17) told a court hearing Prince Harry's lawsuit against the British newspaper.

Harry, King Charles' younger son, and more than 100 others are suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, accusing the papers of phone-hacking and other unlawful behaviour between 1991 and 2011.

MGN, which is now owned by Reach, said it strongly denied the allegations.

Former police officer Derek Haslam told London's High Court that MGN journalists regularly paid a private investigation company, Southern Investigations, to unlawfully gather information.

He said Southern Investigations was involved in the "harvesting and supply of confidential information which had been obtained unlawfully, via phone tapping, computer and phone hacking, bribing police officers and ... other unlawful activities."

He added that he had worked for London's Metropolitan Police before going undercover in the late 1990s to gather intelligence on Southern's co-founder Jonathan Rees.

'Queen's medical records' 

Rees, also a former police officer, "would openly brag" about conducting hacking and blagging - getting private information by deception - on behalf of MGN journalists, Haslam told the court.

In his witness statement, Haslam said: "Rees liked to boast about the information he could get. 'We can get the queen's medical records,' he once said."

Haslam also said Rees had told him that he had "sold some information to the Mirror for a story about Prince Michael of Kent being in debt to the bank".

Lawyers representing the claimants said last week that the Daily Mirror published a story in 1999 saying Prince Michael, the cousin of the late Queen Elizabeth, had a large unauthorised overdraft and a 2.5 million pound (S$4.2 million) debt to his bank based on illegally-obtained information.

The trial, due to last around seven weeks, is initially focusing on generic allegations against MGN before turning to the specific claims of Harry and three other test cases.

Harry is due to give evidence himself in person in early June, the first British royal to do so since the 19th century.

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Source: Reuters