British and US media today published conflicting versions of the “car chase” of Prince Harry, Charles III’s youngest son, and his wife Meghan Markle by paparazzi in New York, which the couple described as “almost catastrophic”.
Source: AFP
A spokesman for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced on Wednesday that they had been victims of a “relentless” two-hour persecution that was about to cause numerous collisions.
The account of the incident, which occurred Tuesday in New York, drew comparisons with the circumstances surrounding the accident in Paris in which Princess Diana, Harry’s mother, died in 1997 while being chased by photographers.
But the New York police, the city mayor and a chauffeur who briefly gave the couple a lift in his taxi minimized on Wednesday the danger and duration of the alleged persecution.
On Thursday, in an interview broadcast by the British channel ITV, one of the photographers involved accused the entourage of the Dukes of Sussex of causing the danger.
“It was very tense trying to keep up with the vehicles,” said the photographer, who requested anonymity.
“They did a lot of blockades and there were many different types of maneuvers to stop what was happening. It was your driver who turned it into a catastrophic experience“he added.
“I wanted to drive fast, change lanes (…) go in the opposite direction,” he said.
The incident occurred after Enrique, 38, and Meghan, 41, attended an awards ceremony with the mother of the American actress, Doria Ragland.
A New York police spokesman said transporting the group was “challenging” because of the photographers, but “No collisions, injuries or arrests were reported.”
The US tabloid newspaper New York Post quoted a source as saying that there were no emergency calls to the police and the alleged persecution “did not last two hours at all.”
But Chris Sanchez, a member of the couple’s security team, told CNN that the pursuit was alarming and dangerous.
“I had never seen or experienced anything like it,” he said. “What we had on our hands was very chaotic. The public was in danger at various times. It could have been fatal, ”she assured.
Prince Harry maintains tense relations with the press and in recent years he has filed numerous lawsuits in the United Kingdom against tabloid newspapers for violation of his privacy.
He and Meghan left the British royal family at the beginning of 2020 and went to live in California, citing unbearable pressure from the media, among other things.
