By Katie Spencer, arts and entertainment editor

Sir Elton John’s husband, David Furnish, explained the couple’s claim in the case against the Daily Mail publisher during his short time on the witness stand this afternoon.

One of the articles in question is from 30 December 2010 and has the headline “Elton: I’m the daddy”. 

Not only do the couple point out in their witness statements that this was quite homophobic in tone, they’ve said they were shocked at how the Daily Mail had been able to obtain a copy of their son’s birth certificate for the piece before they did, and they’re convinced that was done through blagging – in other words someone pretending to be either them or someone close to them. 

The Mail claims the article’s writer telephoned the local registrar’s office and introduced himself as a journalist. 

At the time, there was intense interest in what was going on.

The couple had been very open about their intention to have children. Two married men having a baby via surrogacy was still relatively new in the mainstream conversation.

For a lot of media outlets, it was framed as a “first”. This was during a period when debates over same-sex marriage, adoption and family structures made front-page news.

That openness invited attention, and Furnish explained his approach to dealing with that and why the couple chose to sell their first baby photos to another outlet in court.

“We had a very carefully planned media strategy,” he said. “We chose publications who would pay us a substantial amount of money which we gave to our AIDS foundation.”

With 15 to 20 cars parked outside their apartment, he said, they hoped to “take the money out of the market” for that first photo.

The point being they wanted their own charity to profit from that interest so they weren’t giving information out to journalists freely.