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The Daily Mail’s royal editor has denied using a private investigator to “blag” information about the Duke of Sussex and his former girlfriends, as she was shown emails suggesting the investigator “went out on a limb” to help her.
Rebecca English’s name appears on six of the articles cited by Prince Harry in his case against Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), publisher of the Daily Mail.
He is one of seven claimants suing the publisher, claiming its journalists benefited from unlawful information gathering over decades. ANL denies all the allegations of wrongdoing, saying all its stories were obtained legitimately.
The allegations largely refer to work carried out by Mike Behr, a South Africa-based private investigator that English said she knew only as “a freelance journalist who could help on Africa stories”.
Appearing at the high court in London, English was asked about being sent the exact flight information for Chelsy Davy in December 2007, during Davy’s relationship with the duke.
David Sherborne, the lead barrister for the claimants, showed English an email she had been sent by Behr – also copying in a journalist from the Sun – that contained flight details relating to a holiday Davy was taking with Harry.
In the email, Behr also asked whether English and the Sun reporter “can plant someone next to her?”
Sherborne said the information “could only have been obtained from the computer system” of the airline – which he said could only have come from a “blag”, or obtaining the information unlawfully.
English said she did not remember the email and “did not ask” for such flight details. “[Behr] was never asked for anything like this, ever,” she said. “That is something I would never even consider doing, now or then.”
Asked about the suggestion of planting someone next to Davy, English said: “It’s an absolutely shameful suggestion both by him and by you … clearly there’s no reply to this email, which emphasises my belief that I never actually saw it.”
Sherborne said unlawful information was then used in a story about a “make-or-break holiday” for Harry and Davy.
However, English denied this, saying information for the story was likely to have come from students at the University of Leeds, where Davy studied, “who were friends with Chelsy Davy and part of her circle”.
English was also shown an email from 2006, sent from Behr to the same Sun reporter. In the email, Behr asks whether he should “take the cost of the airline searches out” of money he had already been paid by the reporter. Behr adds: “I’ve billed Rebecca £200 for half the cost so I am partly covered.”
English said money she paid Behr was paid as a day rate, rather than for obtaining specific information.
English was also shown an email exchange with Behr much later in 2014, in which he said a £350 payment from her “for Harry work … simply doesn’t cover the info provided. It’s simply not worth it. I think you know exactly what I mean… ”
Later on, he emailed: “I really don’t want to go into why I’m asking for more in an email. So let’s rather chat when you have the time.”
In a third email, he said extra payment was warranted “not for time spent but for going out on a limb”.
English said Behr liked to speak to her over the phone because he was “very difficult to deal with” and would often successfully push her to pay him more when they spoke on the phone.
However, Sherborne said Behr was suggesting his £350 payment “doesn’t even cover the bribes he had to pay” for attempts to secure unlawfully obtained information related to Harry and his then girlfriend, Cressida Bonas.
English said Sherborne was wrong and repeatedly said it was “absolutely untrue” she ever used Behr to obtain blagged information from hotels or airlines.
English said the email exchange related to their joint efforts to monitor a charity trek Harry was undertaking in Antarctica.
The case continues.
