Christine Flack is backing Prince Harry all the way in his court case (Picture: REX/ITV)
Caroline Flack’s mum has expressed her support for Prince Harry, who is currently back in the UK for a trial against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) involving himself and more than 100 other celebrities.
He has accused MGN – publishers of The Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, now owned by Reach Plc – of unlawfully gathering information, such as by phone hacking.
Chatting to Jeremy Vine on Thursday (June 8), Christine Flack spoke about how Harry used his appearance at the High Court to question how photographers knew he was meeting Flack for dinner in 2009.
The former senior royal, 38, and late TV presenter – who took her own life in 2020 aged 40 – dated briefly, with Flack being described as his ‘bit of rough’ in the tabloids at the time.
Christine – who has been vocal about her feelings towards the media after her daughter died by suicide amid a media storm – told Jeremy that she is supporting Harry through his trial.
Jeremy also displayed an old newspaper front page about Harry’s dinner date with Flack, telling her: ‘You can see with this story how Harry might have initially suspected it came from Caroline, but it didn’t?’
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Caroline Flack died by suicide in 2020 amid a media storm (Picture: Mike Marsland/Mike Marsland/WireImage)
Christine responded: ‘No, and Carrie was the same in her life, whenever a story appeared in the paper, it causes distrust among your friends and your family. She’s say, “Mum, have you said anything?”.’
She went on to allege that her daughter ‘knew her phone was being hacked’ while she was seeing Harry.
These fears caused Flack’s family to use different phones also.
She praised ‘really brave’ Harry for taking the stand, saying he’s ‘doing it for everybody’.
‘He’s getting such an awful lot of stick as well and the people that are reporting on him are the same people that he’s in court against. It’s doubly hard.’
Broadcaster Jeremy then said he ‘doesn’t know’ if you can ‘win a battle’ against the papers.
Christine believes unlawful methods were used to obtain private conversations of her daughters (Picture: ITV)
Christine shut him down.
‘You shouldn’t be even saying that, Jeremy,’ she argued.
‘I’ve been told that. I’ve been told, “Don’t say anything about The Sun, you may need them”, but what I think is, my daughter’s dead so they can’t do anything else to me. It’s an awful thing to say, you can’t win against them. So they can do illegal things, is that what you’re saying?’
Jeremy denied that that was the claim he was making, saying it’s ‘more broad than that’.
When he said people ‘live in fear’ of the press, Christine asked: ‘Do you?’
Jeremy said he doesn’t, but insists he’s ‘not in the zone Caroline or Harry was in’
‘But you are!’, Christine argued. ‘If something happened in your private life, Jeremy, because you’ve got so many things that you’re on, that would be all over the paper, I assure you. And it wouldn’t be nice for you or your family, and that’s what Harry’s trying to say.’
Jeremy then asked if Flack was able to ‘establish that her phone was hacked’ while she was alive.
The Duke of Sussex has alleged that 140 articles over a 14-year period contained information gathered illegally (Picture: Reuters)
Christine is ‘pleased’ Harry is taking on MGN (Picture: Twitter)
Christine admitted that she couldn’t really say.
But, the believes the press obtained ‘private conversations’ of hers that they ‘wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere else’.
She concluded by agreeing with Jeremy that the whole situation leaves a ‘bitter taste’, explaining how she was ‘followed across London by paps’ herself at the time of Flack’s arrest on suspicion of assault, for which she was awaiting a court appearance when she died.
‘It’s horrendous, and I’m just so pleased that he’s (Harry) doing something about it.’
Harry has alleged that around 140 articles published between 1996 and 2010 by Mirror Group Newspapers contained information gathered using unlawful methods.
MGN is contesting his claims and has ‘denied’ or ‘does not admit’ other allegations, and has said Harry’s evidence is ‘slim’ in some cases and ‘utterly non-existent’ in others.
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‘It’s horrendous, and I’m just so pleased that he’s doing something about it.’