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<\/p>\nThe Duke of Sussex\u2019s lawyers were accused of \u201cclutching at straws\u201d in his privacy case before the judge asked Harry to give evidence a day earlier than had been expected.<\/p>\n
Harry was at the High Court on Tuesday morning to hear claims that journalists obtained intimate details of his relationship with Chelsy Davy, then his girlfriend, including their \u201csleeping arrangements\u201d.<\/p>\n
Harry is one of seven people, including the musician Sir Elton John, the actress Elizabeth Hurley and the campaigner Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, who are suing Associated Newspapers Limited, claiming that it misused their private information. ANL has strongly denied wrongdoing and is defending the claims.<\/p>\n
The celebrities\u2019 lawyers have argued that ANL, publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, paid private investigators who intercepted voicemail messages, listened in to landline calls and obtained medical records by deception.<\/p>\n
The 14 articles involved in Harry\u2019s claim were written between 2001 and 2013.<\/p>\n
The duke left court at lunchtime on Tuesday and was not present when the hearing ended 45 minutes into the afternoon session with the conclusion of ANL\u2019s opening defence statement.<\/p>\n
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Harry had been due to spend Wednesday with his lawyers before giving evidence on Thursday. Mr Justice Nicklin, the trial judge, asked if Harry could give evidence on Wednesday morning instead. <\/p>\n
David Sherborne, Harry\u2019s barrister, said he would \u201cendeavour to have the Duke of Sussex here at 2pm tomorrow\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said Harry would detail \u201cdistress\u201d and \u201cparanoia\u201d he had suffered as a result of the alleged unlawful gathering of information about his private life and that the duke felt he had \u201cendured 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\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Prince Harry\u2019s friends were \u2018a good source of leaks\u2019, court hears<\/a><\/p>\n Antony White KC, representing Associated, had taken only 75 minutes to complete his opening statement. A day and a half had been scheduled. He described the privacy claims brought by Harry and the other high-profile figures suing the publisher as \u201cthreadbare\u201d.<\/p>\n Records of payments by the publisher to private investigators were \u201cexamples of clutching at straws in the wind and seeking to bind them together in a way that has no proper analytical foundation\u201d, White said. The social circles of the celebrity claimants \u2014 excluding Lawrence and Sir Simon Hughes \u2014 were, he said, \u201cleaky\u201d and their \u201cfriends, and friends of friends, or associates, did regularly provide information to the press about [their private lives]\u201d.<\/p>\n Hurley, Elton and Elton\u2019s husband, David Furnish, relied \u201cheavily\u201d on allegations by one private investigator, Gavin Burrows, in a witness statement Burrows had since disavowed, the court was told.<\/p>\n Gavin Burrows<\/p>\n BBC\/EXPRESS ONLINE<\/p>\n Hurley, 60, argues that the American billionaire Steve Bing was \u201cusing the press\u201d during their dispute over the paternity of her son, her court was told. She sat next to her son, Damian, as the court was told that there had been extensive media coverage of her public announcement in 2001 that she was pregnant with Bing<\/a>\u2019s child, and his public statement casting doubt on his paternity.<\/p>\n![\"Gavin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/3cd3941d-88df-4e41-9202-12754a30e5aa.jpg\")
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![\"Elizabeth](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/e661f6a9-cd2f-49dd-bd40-e462d1789be0.jpg\")
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