Rishi Sunak has said “cars in New York are not really my priority” after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s team said they avoided a “near catastrophic car chase” in the US city.

Harry and Meghan were followed by paparazzi after attending an awards ceremony with the duchess’s mother, Doria Ragland, according to a spokesman for the couple.

The New York Police Department said there were no arrests, injuries or reported collisions but said “numerous photographers” had “made their transport difficult” on Tuesday evening.

Amid the car chase incident, the Duke of Sussex is one of a number of high-profile figures currently suing Mirror Group Newspapers, which publishes The Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, over alleged unlawful information-gathering at its titles.

The duke is one of four “representative” claimants whose cases have been selected for a trial, being heard over six to seven weeks in London.

This week, a former Mirror journalist told the High Court that a 2004 article about Prince Harry’s then-girlfriend Chelsy Davy used information that had been “obtained legally”.

Here’s the story in full:

One of the paparazzi drivers allegedly involved in the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s car chase incident has shared his experience of the evening.

In his view, the event was a “catastrophic experience”.

Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Thursday morning (18 May), the unidentified paparazzi driver said: “Last night after leaving the theatre, there were hopes from me and a few other photographers that maybe they would go to a restaurant.

“For the most part, I was driving and it was very tense trying to keep up with the vehicles.

“They did a lot of blocking and there was a lot of different type of manoeuvres to stop what was happening.”

Here’s the story in full:

A photo agency that took pictures of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle in a car chase has mocked the royal couple, refusing to hand over the material.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who called the alleged car chase by paparazzi in New York City on Tuesday night “near catastrophic”, demanded Backgrid, a California-based agency, hand over the pictures and videos taken during the encounter.

“We hereby demand that Backgrid [photo agency] immediately provide us with copies of all photos, videos, and/or films taken last night by the freelance photographers after the couple left their event and over the next several hours,” a letter from their lawyers said.

However, the agency’s lawyers snubbed the royal couple, saying they cannot just make demands in America “as Kings can do”.

“In America, as I’m sure you know, property belongs to the owner of it: Third parties cannot just demand it be given to them, as perhaps Kings can do,” Backgrid’s legal team responded.

“Perhaps you should sit down with your client and advise them that his English rules of royal prerogative to demand that the citizenry hand over their property to the Crown were rejected by this country long ago. We stand by our founding fathers,” it added.

Prior to the car chase incident, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had been attending the 2023 Women of Vision Awards at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan.

Meghan was the recipient of the Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Award with Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown.

It was her first public engagement since skipping the coronation of King Charles in London earlier this month.

In her acceptance speech, Meghan told how she had been inspired by reading the magazine as a child.

“It allowed me to recognise that part of my greater value and purpose in life was to advocate for those who felt unheard, to stand up to injustice, and to not be afraid of saying what is true and what is just and what is right,” according to the Associated Press.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle visited a local youth group to discuss some of the everyday societal pressures that children face.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex recently had a conversation with a group of teens at AHA! Santa Barbara, in honour of Mental Health Awareness Month, which takes place every May.

The California-based organisation “has provided social-emotional education to over 20,000 teens and youth care providers,” per the page’s official website. Through its work, the non-profit also “equips teenagers, educators, and parents with social and emotional intelligence to dismantle apathy, prevent despair, and interrupt hate-based behaviour”.

According to The Archewell Foundation, Harry and Meghan visited this group in order to “learn firsthand about this generation’s experiences with social media and societal pressures, and how it affects their mental well-being”.

“This relentless pursuit, lasting over two hours, resulted in multiple near collisions involving other drivers on the road, pedestrians and two NYPD (New York Police Department) officers,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Here is the timeline of the events:

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were followed by half a dozen vehicles after attending a charity awards ceremony on 16 May in New York City. Prince Harry, his wife Meghan, and her mother Doria Ragland were said to be pursued by paparazzi for more than two hours, resulting in “multiple collisions” with other drivers and pedestrians.

“Last night, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Ms Ragland were involved in a near catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi,” a spokesperson for the couple said in a statement on Wednesday. “This relentless pursuit, lasting over two hours, resulted in multiple near collisions involving other drivers on the road, pedestrians and two NYPD (New York Police Department) officers.”

“The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Ms Ragland were involved in a near catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi,” a spokesperson for the couple said in a statement, adding that the “relentless pursuit” lasted “over two hours” and “resulted in multiple near collisions involving other drivers on the road, pedestrians and two NYPD officers”.

Again and again, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, has fought to defang a rampaging media that he believes is insatiable. Again and again he has been mocked, derided and ignored, Samuel Fishwick writes.

A “near catastrophic” car chase at the hands of a “highly aggressive paparazzi” is reported to have lasted for over two hours, as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Doria Ragland were pursued by six blacked out vehicles.