we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. i wanted to expose the criminality that runs through the heart of this corporation. they very nearly ruined my life. i have certainly seen how they have ruined the lives of others. it's really difficult for me to sit here and talk about this because...the whole point of fighting these newspapers is because i was so keen to have my privacy. i feel a sense of...duty... ..to expose them as they've exposed us. reporter: prince harry and sir elton john have l

launched legal actionl against the publishers of the daily mail. action is being taken against the sun newspaper. ..legal action against the mirror group over allegations of phone hacking. who did you hack? it'd be quicker to say who i didn't hack, wouldn't it? it'd be easier. celebrities, politicians. i was living in this sort of superhighway of illicit information. it was exciting. you felt like a spy. i don't know to this day how many people have heard my deepest secrets, my desires. ..but phone hacking was not- practised by the mail on sunday or the daily mail. you have just about anybody who's ever appeared

in a tabloid newspaper saying, "give me large wodges of cash, please." i think it's actually a legal scandal. it's not the money i'm after. it's to expose their guilt. it's justice. so prince harry has brought a claim against news group newspapers for publications both in the news of the world and in the sun, over 200 articles. more than half were published by the sun. the articles stretch from the mid—90s, when his mother was still alive, to 2010, and so they include articles from when he was a child. it's alleged that they were

phone—hacking princess diana. prince harry is going on this crusade that some have - described as a moral- crusade to right the wrongs of the past, as he sees it. he believes they contributed to the death of his mother. i everything goes backl to the death of diana, princess of wales. he believes it was her- paranoia, herfearthat her bodyguards were leaking - information that led her to get rid of her police protection. and he believes that if she hadl had those bodyguards with her, she would not have died in that car crash in paris in 1997. - reporter: the crash happened shortly after midnight. - they were apparently being pursued at high speed by photographers on motorbikes. there are some specific examples given in prince harry's claim that are worth hearing about. around 2004, he met chelsy davy, started dating her... . ..and there was huge - amounts of interest in that

relationship and huge amounts of targetingl of chelsy and harry. in his claim, there is evidence that chelsy's phone records i were supplied to the sun| by a south african private investigator called mike behr. chelsy lived in cape town. also, there is a payment made by the sun again to this - south african private - investigator, mike behr. it's a payment of £1,500 - for exclusive for "chelsy davy hospital dash." one theory is that that i involved accessing chelsy davy's private - medical information.

when you go through some of the claims, some of them seem quite weak. frankly, it seems that they could have just had access to someone within his inner circle. in terms of the articles, you're often misled in terms of where this information may have come from. they never quote a source. they never say, "so—and—so said this." theyjust say, "a pal has said this," or, "an insider has said this." it's deliberately worded that way to throw you off the scent. in harry's case, he would be very keen to go to trial. he wants everything out in the open. he wants everybody to know the full extent of not only him, but what all the other claimants have suffered as well. and i think he wants to hold the people who have done all this accountable, at the end of the day. harry's got this claim

against you with the sort of 50—odd articles, saying that you used illegal means to get the stories. yeah. well, harry must know- in his own mind that that can't be the case. i can't say where every storyl was from, but i can say those ones that i wrote weren't from phone hacking. - simple as that. do you think hacking was going on at the time? i don't. no. well, i certainly didn't think so at the time. i you don't think that they sent pis to get information? the people that i worked with were journalists, . not private investigators. did you know about people using pis to get a telephone number, to get something like that? um, i was aware that there are... j i mean, we callthem the dark arts. - i was aware that there were... there's more than one way of skinning a rabbit. - and in certain circumstances, newspapers employed those i people. and did the sun employ those people?

well, i think... i think everybody did, yeah. i've heard more and more allegations that illegal - newsgathering was somethingj incredibly common in the sun, and that has not been my experience of the place . i worked. i never, ever heard a suggestion that the sun was involved in phone hacking in any way. i don't believe they were. the police and the crown prosecution service do not believe it is something worth pursuing, so there's not been a criminal inquiry into phone hacking for literally years and years. reporter: police raiding - the homes of news international staff, looking for evidence of phone hacking. in the years following the closure of news of the world

in 2011, the police conducted a series of high—profile investigations into illegal activity by newspapers. about 6.00am in the morning, there was a knock on my front door. the police had arrived to arrest me. for me, it began with - a dawn raid on my house. my dog started to bark. it was probably about 6.00 l in the morning, and i opened the door to a crowd of police officers, all in plainclothesl searching through my - five—year—old's bedroom — i don't even know to this day what they were looking for —j saying that they'd come - to arrest me under operation elveden. it was about paying public officials. - and, yes, we pay public officials. . that's why on page two of the sun, it says, - "we pay cash for stories. ring this number." - it was the start of about four years of hell, because they kept me waiting on bail.

ijust had to wait and wait i and hope it would go away. but a year later, - i was charged, and then, a further two and a half years on, on 5th january 2015, - my trial started at - the old bailey in london. good luck. thanks, guys. at the end of four years, the judge said, "you can go now." and that was the end of it. it was devastating, completely devastating. devastated my life. you know what? i'll never get over this. i've been virtually unable to work for four years. it's taken my health, my family's health, our money, my career, and all because of a campaign against you guys just as much as it is against tabloid journalists. it's a campaign against journalism. many other people were put on trial. frankly, they were show trials, as mine was. time and time again,

as in my case, a jury of 12 good people and true listened and threw it out. it destroyed my career, . destroyed my confidence, and it destroyed my marriage, and it nearly destroyed me - completely. i'm obviouslyjust relieved at today's verdict. - but there is no celebration whilst this witch—hunt - continues against my colleagues, who still| are facing the nightmare that i hopefully one dayl will wake up from. journalists shout that is definitely rebekah brooks and her husband, charles brooks. i think rebekah went in first. in total, 41 people were arrested. nine were convicted. the others, like rebekah brooks, were cleared of all charges.

the cps has not turned to the police and said, "start investigating again." they are not interested. they do not believe there is anything like enough evidence. if the allegations are true, why aren't the police investigating this? i think the difficulty i was that after the trial of rebekah brooks and andy. coulson etc, i think the public just lost the appetite for it, - and therefore the cps also lost appetite for it as well. it is disappointing - that the police don't take it further, given the evidence that's come to light since, i but it's a decision for them. people on the other side would say, "well, this isjust proof "that the evidence is flimsy

and it doesn't mean anything." if that was the case, _ why would news group have been settling hundreds of claims in the last ten years - for millions and millions and millions of pounds i if it was just flimsy evidencel and it didn't mean anything? news group newspapers are now fighting to bring an end to the waves of civil litigation against them. at the end of 2022, they asked the courts to strike out two high—profile claims, arguing that the alleged unlawful activity happened too long ago. one is the case of prince harry, the other of hugh grant. hugh grant: the press - should have massive power. they're such an important pillar of democracy. they need to be there to hold power to account. where there is a genuine public interest, i think the press should be given enormous licence, almost, almost to the point of illegality. but it doesn't matter, really, what a celebrity is doing.

it's interesting to the public, but it's definitely not in the public interest. at that point, it becomes invasion of privacy, or privacy theft, i would argue. and, really, what they were doing was looking for profit at whatever cost and by whatever means... ..criminal or not. in september 2022, several victims of crime and their relatives were among 200 new claims brought against the sun and the news of the world. the phone hacking scandal| broke at the exact moment that the business model- for these previously incredibly profitable tabloid - newspapers was collapsing of its own accord. the internet had come along. information was no longer just what you could read l in a print product.

in the old days, if you got- a good kiss—and—tell or you got a good, scandalous celebrity story, you'd add a quarter. of a million sales to your tabloid just like that. - with the internet, well, they might click on it, l but you're not going to make much money off that. - having hundreds of millions of pounds leaving these - businesses in damages _ at the exact moment they needed to be investing hundreds of millions of pounds - to secure their future hasj been incredibly damaging for the british- newspaper industry. most of the british press operates at break—even at best. it would not surprise me if this constant drip, drip, drip — at some point, shareholders or media owners are going to say, "we can't afford this any more. "we need to close. just close it." it could be a terrible day for the british press, for freedom of the press, for freedom of speech, if this is allowed to continue. reporter: prince harry has| arrived at the high court this morning at the start

of his latest privacy case. the duke of sussex is taking legal action, along with a group of other high—profile figures, against the publisher of the daily mail. eltonjohn has also just arrived. baroness doreen lawrence will also attend. for the first time, the daily mail and the mail on sunday are now facing claims from seven alleged victims. this year, the initial hearings in the strongly disputed cases took place at the high court to decide whether they can proceed to trial. when the phone hacking scandal broke, paul dacre, editor of the mail, made very clear that this was not the sort of behaviour that the mail group would have been involved in. i can be as confident as any. editor, having made extensive inquiries into the newspaper's practices and held an inquiry, | that phone hacking was not - practised by the mail on sunday or the daily mail. you know that because i gave this inquiry my unequivocal, i unequivocal assurances on that.

the cases against the mail came out of the blue. it was extraordinary. you could see it in the response from the mail. it was disgust that they were even having to deal with this. it was accusations that this was a stitch—up by a cabal of press reform campaigners. the claimants' cases also feature evidence from a number of private investigators turned whistleblowers. what we're really looking for is whether the claims of the private investigators who form the bedrock of this case really stack up, whether they're credible and whether there's documents to back up the allegations that they've made that they were doing illegal work on behalf of the mail and the mail on sunday over several decades.

in a blow for the claimants, one investigator that they had hoped would give evidence on some of the most serious allegations has now denied he was ever commissioned to work for the mail. some of the private investigators providing evidence are convicted criminals. this includes the jailed phone hacker glenn mulcaire. i hacked for the mail on sunday indirectly, through mercury press. targets included sadie frost, simon hughes, and... ..jude law. so you kept notes and materials? everything was always dated, and all the information can always be referred back to when journalists need to pick up more details. what we have here is the instruction. you have the mail on sunday clearly noted there. you have sadie frost as the target. you have all the details, and you also have the transcription of the voicemails, of sadie frost's voicemails. they were then forwarded

on to my boss by email, who then emailed the mail on sunday. an email which contained transcribed quotes from the alleged hacking was sent to the mail on sunday by mulcaire's boss at mercury press. however, the email said nothing about how the quotes were obtained. so what's been happening in court? probably the most damaging thing that came up was the claim from baroness lawrence, who's the mother of the murdered teenager stephen lawrence. what she said was explosive.

"i now feel i was betrayed." she says that while she thought they were on her side, they were actually going behind her back and trying to dig up information on her. shouting reporter: m s is the scenario that everyone feared, emotions running out of control down here, and the evidence of the five suspects temporarily derailed. i started reporting on the stephen lawrence murder in the mid to late 1990s. doreen lawrence was thrust into the spotlight by the fact that the police failed to get justice for her son. well, no, because stephen's killers are still walking the streets. it wasn't until the coroner's

inquest that we got to see the five main suspects. they appeared to treat the legal system with contempt... ..as if they were above the whole process. that triggered the daily mail to publish its now infamous headline, "murderers," naming the five main suspects. the daily mail has really. thrown down the gauntlet with this story. that headline was so powerful that the case for examining what had gone wrong became increasingly impossible to avoid. the day in 2012 when dobson and norris were convicted was a day of huge satisfaction for both of stephen's parents. i've had a lot of support

from everybody, from the press included, and i think ijust wanted to say thank you all. i think doreen lawrence came to trust the daily mail because of the role that they played in her campaign. in her claim, there is a section that is very personal. you get the sense that there was a close relationship there, and one where she felt that she was in safe hands. she trusted them. we've got the claim form from baroness lawrence, and it's a quite incredible litany of allegations, including interception of voicemail, so old—school phone hacking, tapping of landline telephones, blagging of personal records, monitoring of bank accounts, covert electronic surveillance, and corrupt payments to serving metropolitan police officers, including some of them who were working on the murder investigation into who killed her son.

is it difficult for you to know if this stands up? we're at the point in the legal process where these are a load of allegations. a lot of it's based on circumstantial evidence, and a lot of it is based on the belief of the claimants and their legal teams. if this goes to trial, that's when we'll see their claims tested. baroness lawrence writes — she wonders, by trusting the daily mail, whether she let down her murdered son, stephen. she writes in her statement that she's been played for a fool.

i don't believe for a minute - that illegal behaviour happened at the daily mail. this litigation, it's _ a windmill that keeps turning, and very lucrative it is for various law firms i and for various people trying - to now make money from events that happened many years ago. what we're seeing is the endgame, really, of three decades, almost, of phone hacking legal cases.

now you've got almost every single national newspaper group in the uk being sued by various prominent individuals who are determined to drag this back into the public consciousness. they've already succeeded on that point, and the next challenge is, can they actually get the legal victories that they want?

hello. after what has been a mixed and decidedly chilly week of weather, things are not going to warm up an awful lot through the weekend. staying chilly, some rain at times, but it is going to turn warmer next week. however, not completely dry. still some wet weather

in the forecast. certainly some wet weather for the weekend, all driven by this area of low pressure pushing up from the south. this frontal system here bringing rain northwards across southern england into wales, the midlands and east anglia. to the north of that, some sunny spells to start the day. a cold start with a frost across northern england, northern ireland and scotland. it will be another sunshine and showers day. the showers wintry over high ground in scotland. some hefty showers breaking out for southern counties, and then some more persistent rain heading in from the south by the end of the afternoon, temperatures generally around 10—13 degrees. and then through saturday night, this rain will push its way northwards, covering large parts of england, clipping into the east of wales. further north and west, some clear spells. another relatively chilly night, there'll be a frost for some. further south and east, not as cold because of the extra cloud, because of the outbreaks of rain, all driven by this area of low pressure which will be sliding its way northwards through the day on sunday. some parts of england are going to have a lot

of rain through the day, heavy and persistent rain that will make it feel decidedly chilly. some rain fringing into east wales, turning wet in eastern scotland, rather windy for some of these eastern coasts, but eventually brightening up for south west england, for wales, parts of northwest england, northern ireland and western scotland seeing some sunshine as well. temperatures still stubbornly stuck in that range between 9—11; degrees, but temperatures will start to lift on monday. a frontal system pushing in from the west. outbreaks of rain for some, but ahead of that, a southerly wind bringing a warmer feel. temperatures back up really to where they should be for late april 12—16 degrees. and it'll turn warmer still as the week wears on. this area of low pressure tending to roll away southwards as all these different weather systems reorientate themselves. well, the wind direction will change, we'll pick up something of an easterly flow from the near continent, and that will bring some warmer air. highs potentially up to 19, maybe the low 20s celsius. but with that, there will still

be some rain at times.

live from washington, this is bbc news. the us�*s top diplomat tells the bbc his country is prepared to take steps against china, if it continues to support russia's war effort. donald trump's former assistant takes the stand, as the first full week of testimony in his criminal trial comes to a close. and we speak to a founder of the #metoo movement, afterfilm producer harvey weinstein's rape conviction is overturned in new york. hello. i'm carl nasman. we start with a meeting between two global superpowers. us secretary of state antony blinken was in china for talks with the chinese president xijinping on friday. the us�*s top diplomat said there has been progress in some areas. he praised beijing for its efforts to stop the supply of fentanyl from reaching the us and the increase in military—to—military communication.

president xi agreed the two sides had "made some positive