The Duke of Sussex is set to begin giving evidence today in the High Court trial of his legal action against the publisher of the Daily Mail.
Prince Harry is among a group of high-profile individuals, including Sir Elton John and David Furnish, bringing claims against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over allegations of unlawful information gathering.
The claimants—who also include Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Sir Simon Hughes, Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley—allege that private information was obtained through activities such as phone tapping and the “blagging” of private records for use in news articles.
Associated Newspapers has strongly denied any wrongdoing and is contesting the claims.
The Duke attended court on Monday and the start of proceedings on Tuesday but left the Royal Courts of Justice during the lunch break.
He was originally expected to give evidence on Thursday, but opening submissions concluded earlier than expected on Tuesday.
The trial will resume at 10.30am, with Harry expected to arrive at the court around 11am and take the witness box at approximately 11.30am.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Antony White KC, representing ANL, said the claims were “threadbare” and had been brought too late.
He argued that the journalists involved had followed a “compelling account of a pattern of legitimate sourcing” for more than 50 articles alleged to have been produced through unlawful means.
Mr White dismissed claims that reporters' payments to private investigators proved wrongdoing, describing them as “examples of clutching at straws in the wind and seeking to bind them together in a way that has no proper analytical foundation.”
He also challenged a key piece of evidence—that a private investigator named Gavin Burrows had received large sums of money from ANL—calling the statement “inherently implausible.”
Mr White said: “Associated is not a corner shop. It is audited. Auditors usually do not miss the haemorrhaging of large amounts of cash of this size.”
In written submissions, Mr White said the publisher “strongly denies” that there was any unlawful information gathering, including voicemail interception, directed at the duke.
He said the articles in question were “sourced entirely legitimately from information variously provided by contacts of the journalists responsible, including individuals in the Duke of Sussex’s social circle, press officers and publicists, freelance journalists, photographers and prior reports.”
David Sherborne, legal counsel for the claimants, told the court that Prince Harry feels he has “endured a sustained campaign of attacks against him” because he “had the temerity to stand up” to the publisher.
Mr Sherborne said: “In his witness statement for the trial, the Duke of Sussex speaks of the impact which this has had on him—the distress, the paranoia and the other feelings that it generated.
“But given what we've seen, is it any wonder that he feels that way, or as he explains, that he feels he has endured a sustained campaign of attacks against him for having had the temerity to stand up to Associated in the way that he has so publicly done?”
The trial is scheduled to conclude in March, with a written judgment to be delivered at a later date.
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