Private detective apologizes for attacking Chelsy Davy while dating Prince Harry

A private detective has apologized for attacking the Duke of Sussex’s ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy when they were boyfriends, saying Prince Harry was seen as ‘the new Diana’.

Gavin Burrows, a witness in ongoing lawsuits against News of the World and the Sun, claimed that Chelsy Davy’s phones were being monitored after she started dating Prince Harry, 37, in 2004.

Burrows said Harry was seen as the ‘new Diana’ in the early 2000s, claiming that editors told him that putting Harry on the front page sold more copies of newspapers than his brother, Prince William.

Speaking to the BBC in the new documentary The Princes and the Press, Mr Burrows said: ‘There was a lot of voicemail hacking, there was a lot of surveillance work on her phones, on her communications.

‘Chelsy would brag to her friends when she saw him.’

Gavin Burrows, a witness in a lawsuit against News of the World, claimed that Chelsy Davy’s phones were put under surveillance after she started dating Prince Harry (pictured in 2006)

Burrows’ allegations have been hotly contested and are yet to be tried in court.

He claimed Ms Davy’s communication was targeted, saying investigators were interested in her medical records, details of her education and her ex-boyfriends.

The private investigator, who began working for News of the World in 2000, apologized for his behavior, which he said was because he was ‘greedy’, adding that he regretted his treatment of Prince Harry.

He added: ‘I was basically part of a group of people who robbed him [Harry] of his normal teenage years. ‘

Burrows, who was one of many private investigators working for British newspapers during what later became known as the phone-hacking scandal, said there was a “ruthless” culture in some areas of the media at the time.

Lawyer Callum, who coordinates the ongoing lawsuits against News Group Newspapers, said the extent of newspapers’ use of private investigators from the early 1990s until 2011 was “phenomenal”.

Burrows (pictured), who began working for News of the World in 2000, apologized for his behavior and said he regretted his treatment of Prince Harry

Burrows claimed that Ms. Davys’ (pictured with Harry in 2008) communication was targeted, saying investigators were interested in her medical records and her ex-boyfriends.

Harry is suing News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun and the late Sunday newspaper News of the World. He is also suing the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Reach Plc.

News of the World shut down in 2011 after allegations that journalists paid private investigators to hack into the phones of families of British military personnel killed in action and the phone of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch, was forced to step down in the wake of the telephone hacking scandal after publicly defending his father’s British newspapers.

In 2011, then-Prime Minister David Cameron announced that the Leveson investigation would investigate the alleged phone hack from News of the World.

The inquiry published the Leveson report in November 2012, which called for an independent body to replace the Press Complaints Commission. PCC closed in 2014 and was replaced by the Independent Press Standards Organization.

News Group Newspapers accepted that a limited amount of illegal activity took place on News of the World, but denies any wrongdoing by Sun, saying it has not claimed responsibility in the phone hacking cases against it.