News

Did Princess Di Divulge Royal Phone Numbers?

by Isobel Markham

A former editor has claimed that Princess Diana gave him a royal phone directory. As part of the ongoing trial into allegations of phone-hacking at News Corp.'s News of the World paper, dramatically shut down in 2011 after the allegations leaked, the Old Bailey — the central criminal court of England and Wales — heard testimony Princess Diana gave the directory to former royal editor Clive Goodman in 1992. Why? Because she need an "ally" in her battles against her estranged husband, Prince Charles, apparently.

Goodman is one of seven people from the News of the World standing trial for phone hacking and bribing public officials. When the allegations first emerged in 2006, he was one of two people who pleaded guilty to hacking the phones of royal aides, and was briefly jailed in 2007. The scandal surrounding phone hacking at News of the World eventually led to Company Chairman Rupert Murdoch closing the tabloid in 2011, after a discovery that journalists at the publication had hacked the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Millie Dowler.

Goodman is charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office by paying public officials for the directories, which he denies. Goodman told the court that he did not ask Princess Diana for the directory — called the Green Book, which contained the personal phone numbers of senior royals — nor did he know that she was sending it to him until it arrived.

Pascal Rondeau/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

Goodman said that the princess was going through a "very, very difficult time" and wanted him to see the scale of Prince Charles' household staff, compared to others'. Goodman also told the court that he has never paid a police officer or royal protection officer for information for a story, and denied using the books — of which police found 15 at his home in 2006 — to get hold of cellphone numbers for hacking.

Earlier Thursday, Goodman had told jurors that the newspaper's editor at the time, Andy Coulson, was "aggressive, combative and a bully." Goodman was dismissed from the newspaper in 2007 after he was jailed, but it wasn't all bad: He received a severance payment of the equivalent of $234,000.