Prince Harry ‘clutching at straws’ with claim against Mail publisher, court told

The Duke of Sussex and other high-profile claimants accusing the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday of unlawful information gathering are “clutching at straws”, a court has heard.

Prince Harry is among seven claimants including Sir Elton John and Liz Hurley alleging Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) committed “grave breaches of privacy” over a 20-year period.

Defending the publisher, Antony White KC argued the reporters behind the stories had provided a “compelling account of a pattern of legitimate sourcing of articles”.

White said in written submissions that the celebrities had “leaky” social circles and that a “pattern of misconduct… is simply not made out”.

The claimants have accused the publisher of “clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information gathering” for stories between 1993 and “beyond” 2018, including through private investigators and blagging.

In their joint opening statement on Monday, they accused a string of senior Mail and Mail on Sunday journalists of being “engaged in or complicit in the culture of unlawful information gathering that wrecked the lives of so many”. ANL has denied all wrongdoing.

Joining the duke in bringing the lawsuit against ANL are:

• Actors Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost
• Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish
• Sir Simon Hughes, the former Liberal Democrat MP
• Baroness Doreen Lawrence, a campaigner whose son Stephen Lawrence was murdered in a racist attack in south London in 1993

On Monday, David Sherborne had set out the claims of Frost, Baroness Lawrence, and Prince Harry – who said the alleged behaviour had left him “paranoid beyond belief”.

Prince Harry, Hurley and Sir Simon were present for the second day of the trial at the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday, which is expected to last nine weeks.

In his opening argument for the publisher, White said the claimants were “clutching at straws in the wind and seeking to bind them together in a way that has no analytical foundation”.

He said a “striking feature” of the ANL’s defence was that it had been able to obtain an explanation from almost all of the journalists named in the legal action of how they had sourced their stories, to the best of their memory.

“The fact that they are willing and able to do so speaks volumes of the culture” of ANL, he argued.

White also argued it was improbable that the journalists facing the “very serious” allegations would all be lying to the court about their sourcing.

He made the case that the group was relying on evidence of payments to private investigators before or after an article’s publication, but often did not detail what the investigators were actually being paid to do.

He claimed they were instead relying on evidence about the investigators from previous cases in which Prince Harry took on Mirror Group Newspapers and News Group Newspapers, the publisher of The Sun.

He said this was problematic because such “generic” evidence had been “struck out” of the case by the judge, Mr Justice Nicklin, in 2025.

The judge had ruled at the time that evidence a journalist at one paper had used an investigator for unlawful purposes could not be used to prove a reporter at a different paper – using the same investigator – had also done something wrong.

The allegations in the case were revealed in 2022, when lawyers for six of the seven claimants said they had evidence of private investigators having used phone tapping, or intercepting phone calls.

In its written submissions, ANL said their only direct evidence to support this claim came from a statement by private investigator Gavin Burrows, in which he admitted the use of a series of unlawful techniques. He has since said his signature on the statement was forged.

Prince Harry’s legal team says that claim is “wild and unfounded”. Burrows will be called to give evidence at the trial.

ANL said it was “inconceivable that the claimants will now be able to make good the implausible allegations made in that witness statement”.

White said the journalists used standard reporting skills rather than private investigators. The publisher’s case statement said it had a “strong positive case” for each alleged incident, with a witness able to explain the sourcing of “almost every article”.

White said Daily Mail crime journalist Stephen Wright, at the centre of the allegations about Baroness Lawrence, had good contacts in the police who provided information.

For example, he said a story in 1997 about the government calling a public inquiry into her son’s murder came from a tip from then-Home Secretary Jack Straw to the paper’s editor Paul Dacre – not phone tapping.

He said royal reporters Katie Nicholl and Rebecca English attended parties in the outer circles of the duke’s social scene and picked up information from friends.

Stringers in various countries had also provided information for stories, including those about Prince Harry and his then-girlfriend Chelsy Davy, and the birth of Sir Elton and Furnish’s son, White argued.

Sir Elton and Furnish had accused ANL of “stealing” their son’s birth certificate before they had a chance to see it, accusing the publisher of “invasion of medical details”.

White also noted that ANL defended the claims “on limitation grounds” – meaning that they claim they were brought too late.

Privacy cases must usually be brought within six years of the alleged breach, unless victims can show they could not bring a case at the time.

This is a civil trial, so there is no jury and the judge will decide the case on his own.

It is Prince Harry’s third major court battle accusing newspaper groups of unlawful behaviour.

In December 2023, he won 15 claims in his case accusing Mirror Group Newspapers of unlawfully gathering information for stories published about him.

In January 2025, the publisher of the Sun newspaper agreed to pay “substantial damages” and issued an apology to the prince, over claims of unlawful intrusion into his life.