"Troubling evidence" has come to light that the Duke of Sussex allegedly destroyed documents and messages related to his memoir, Spare, and a judge has ordered Prince Harry to defend himself.

On Thursday, June 27, attorney Anthony Hudson, representing News Group Newspapers (NGN), publisher of the British tabloid The Sun, told the court that Prince Harry had destroyed "a draft of his 2023 memoir, Spare, as well as the book's ghostwriter, J.R . deleted messages with Moehringer," People reported.

In response, Judge Fancourt, who is presiding over the trial as part of Prince Harry's lawsuit against the publisher, said that "a number of potentially relevant documents and confidential messages between the Duke and the ghostwriter of the 'Spare' were removed from the book long after this claim was underway," according to The Telegraph. He said he saw "troubling evidence that they were destroyed between 2021 and 2023.

The Duke of Sussex is currently involved in four separate lawsuits against British newspapers. Prince Harry claims that NGN journalists and investigators illegally invaded his privacy between 1994 and 2016.

Judge Fancourt said the lack of documentation was "rather surprising" and gave the court "cause for concern," the Telegraph reported.

"It was not transparent and clear what had happened," the judge continued, and asked Prince Harry to provide a witness statement explaining "what happened to the messages exchanged between him and the ghostwriter and whether any attempt was made to retrieve them."

People reportedly requested that.

According to court documents obtained by People, Prince Harry, through his attorney David Sherburne, responded to the motion, describing NGN's accusations as "transparent, old-fashioned fishing."

"NGN's tactical and lame approach to disclosure completely undermines the deliberately sensationalist claim that [the Duke of Sussex] is not disclosing information properly," Sherbourne said in the same court document obtained by the magazine. 'This is untrue. In fact, the plaintiffs have already made it clear that they have conducted an extensive investigation that goes beyond the call of duty."

In March 2024, as part of a privacy lawsuit, the Duke of Sussex accused NGN of illegally intercepting "calls between his late mother Princess Diana and his father, the current King Charles III," the Associated Press reported at the time.

Prince Harry's lawyer argued that the alleged "wiretapping" between Princess Diana, Prince Charles, and now Queen Camilla "inevitably revealed private information about Harry at the age of nine," and that Princess Diana "suspected she was being followed and her calls tapped . was being followed and her calls were being tapped," the Associated Press reported, adding in an amended complaint.

In 2023, Prince Harry took the stand as part of a lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mirror. During his testimony, the Duke of Sussex said, "I have been hostile to the press ever since I was born."

"Not any particular article, but all of them. Every article has been a source of torment to me."