Prince Harry said he brought the phone hacking case to court because he wanted to stop 'hate' toward Meghan Markle

• Prince Harry is suing Mirror Group Newspaper for alleged unlawful information gathering.
• Harry has accused journalists of allegedly hacking his voicemails between the 1990s and 2000s.

The Duke of Sussex said he took the phone hacking trial to court in order to prevent "hate" towards his wife, BBC News reports.

Harry is suing Mirror Group Newspapers over unlawful information gathering, alleging that journalists from several publications hacked his and other celebrities' voicemails in the 1990s and 2000s and published the information they discovered.

In a statement sent to Insider on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Reach Plc (publisher of Mirror Group titles) said that the company takes "full responsibility and apologise unreservedly" where wrongdoings have historically taken place, but added that it will "vigorously defend against allegations of wrongdoing where our journalists acted lawfully."

Harry was cross-examined at the trial, which took place at London's High Court on Tuesday and Wednesday. He spoke about articles that he says were a result of phone hacking, including stories about his relationship with his brother Prince William and his ex-girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, who Harry dated between 2004 and 2010.

Harry answered questions from the Mirror News Group's lawyer on Wednesday and said he chose to bring the case to court to stop "hate" towards Meghan Markle, who he has been married to since 2018. The couple have two children together.

Although the BBC's report didn't elaborate on his comments, Harry said in a witness statement provided to the court and obtained by The Independent that he and Meghan had been subjected to "a barrage of horrific personal attacks and intimidation" from TV personality Piers Morgan, who was the editor of the Daily Mirror between 1995 and 2004.

Harry added that he believes this behavior was "in retaliation" to the phone hacking claim "and in the hope that I will back down."

As Insider previously reported, Morgan claims to have been friends with Meghan at around the same time she met Prince Harry in 2016. But during an appearance on "The Late Late Show" in 2018, Morgan said she "ghosted" him after meeting Harry, and his coverage of her in the press became increasingly unfavorable.

In March 2021, Morgan resigned from his role as an anchor on "Good Morning Britain" after he was criticized for saying he didn't believe Meghan's comments about her mental health in her Oprah Winfrey interview earlier that month.

When asked by a Sky News journalist what he thought of Harry's comments about him, Morgan responded: "I didn't see it. But I wish him luck with his privacy campaign, looking forward to reading it in his next book," as shown in a video posted to Twitter by ITV's royal editor Chris Ship on Tuesday.

Representatives for the Duke of Sussex did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Piers Morgan could not be reached.