The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales (Old Bailey) in London has heard today that former News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman hacked Kate Middleton’s phone 155 times.
The phone-hacking trial was told Clive Goodman first hacked Kate Middleton’s voicemail in December 2005.
Clive Goodman also hacked Prince William 35 times and Prince Harry on nine occasions.
Clive Goodman hacked Kate Middleton’s phone 155 times (photo Getty Images)
This is the first time the jury has heard of a royal’s phone being hacked.
Clive Goodman, who denies conspiring to commit misconduct in public office, previously said he only hacked aides.
He is one of seven defendants, including ex-News of the World editors Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, on trial at the Old Bailey. They all deny the charges against them.
He returned to the Old Bailey to resume giving evidence after a long period away due to illness.
The court heard how Clive Goodman hacked Kate Middleton on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day in 2005 – more than five years before she married Prince William.
He also hacked her on August 7, 2006, the day before he was arrested over allegations of phone hacking.
Prince William’s voicemail was first intercepted in late January 2006, the court heard.
This was the first time that the jury has heard that a mobile belonging to Prince William was hacked.
Clive Goodman denied he had “forgotten” about targeting the young royals when he said in evidence earlier in the trial that he had only hacked aides working for the royals.
The jury was also told that Clive Goodman hacked Michael Fawcett, a trusted aide of Prince Charles, 35 times.
Clive Goodman had not been in court since the end of March after he was declared unfit to carry on. The trial continued in his absence.
The judge told the jury he had been “ill”, but the court was given a report from an independent medical expert declaring him “now fit” to continue.
He also told the jury that he had “no alternative” but to keep them waiting because medical assessments were continually being submitted.
Clive Goodman will be allowed more time than usual to give the remainder of his evidence because medical experts have advised he may get tired more quickly.
The jury previously heard that the former royal editor of the now-defunct tabloid had undergone a minor heart procedure during the trial.
Clive Goodman, of Addlestone, Surrey, was convicted of phone hacking in 2006.
Appearing on Wednesday in the witness box, with a small bandage over his left hand, he was asked what he knew about phone hacking before January 2005, when he said he had been told about it by a colleague.
Before then, the News of the World colleague had passed pieces of information to Clive Goodman for stories. But the defendant said he never knew where it came from.
A voicemail message left by Prince Harry was hacked by the News of the World, the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales has heard.
The Old Bailey’s jury was shown a transcript of the hacked message to an aide asking for help with an essay while the prince was at Sandhurst military academy.
The 2005 document was one kept by former News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman, who denies misconduct in public office.
Clive Goodman is one of eight people who deny a series of charges at the trial of former News of the World journalists.
He was jailed for phone hacking in 2007 and subsequently dismissed.
Prosecutor Andrew Edis QC told the court that documents from Clive Goodman’s employment case against News International had recently become available after he waived his legal privilege.
Clive Goodman kept the documents as evidence to show that what he had done had been sanctioned at a high level of the News of the World, Andrew Edis said.
The first document shown to the jury was a transcript of a voicemail message Prince Harry left on the mobile phone of Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, an ex-SAS man serving as his private secretary, asking for information about the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London.
The transcript included the words: “Just wondering if you have any info at all on siege on the Iranian embassy because I need to write an essay quite quickly on that. I need some inf. Have most of the stuff but if you have extra.”
A voicemail message left by Prince Harry was hacked by the News of the World
Andrew Edis told the jury that the voicemail came to the attention of Clive Goodman, who was interested in it as a potential allegation of misconduct to do with essay writing against Prince Harry.
The prince was at Sandhurst doing his officer training when the events took place around December 2005.
The message was accessed by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who was jailed for phone hacking along with Clive Goodman and has admitted further phone-hacking charges.
The court heard there were discussions between Clive Goodman and his boss, then News of the World editor Andy Coulson, in which they decided not to refer to the siege in their newspaper’s story as it would be “too precise to get through unnoticed”.
Andrew Edis said: “It means that if they say that what he was asking about was information about the Iranian Embassy siege, everyone would know that they hacked his voicemail because obviously Harry and Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton both knew that this voicemail was sent and received.”
He suggested to the jury that the reason Clive Goodman had kept the emails was because of his arrest.
Clive Goodman’s prosecution caused Andy Coulson, 45, who denies charges including conspiracy to phone hack, and others at News International to be “extremely worried about what Goodman would do, or say, in the course of defending himself”.
Andrew Edis continued: “We can see that they had every reason to be worried.”
The court heard that concern about keeping Clive Goodman “on-board” was also felt by former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks who was at this time, in May 2007, editor of the Sun.
Andrew Edis told the jury about an email exchange between Rebekah Brooks and Clive Goodman in which she offered him a job on the Sun, shortly after he had been released from prison.
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