PRINCE HARRY HAS begun giving evidence in his legal action against the publisher of the Daily Mail. 

The British prince is one of a number of celebrities and public figures to sue Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over allegations of unlawful information gathering.

This includes claims that information for articles was obtained by carrying out or commissioning unlawful activities such as phone tapping and “blagging” private records.

Singer Elton John and his husband David Furnish, actresses Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley, and campaigner Doreen Lawrence – the mother of teenager Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered in 1993 by a gang of racists – are all part of the legal action. 

ANL has strongly denied wrongdoing and is defending the claims.

Harry arrived at the Royal Courts of Justice shortly after 11am this morning and began giving evidence at around 11.45am. 

He had originally been scheduled to give evidence tomorrow, but opening submissions for the claimants and ANL concluded earlier than expected on Tuesday.

This morning, a source close to Harry’s claim said that ANL and its legal team “have had months to inform the court that their opening argument would last less than two hours”, accusing the publisher of resorting “to game-playing and dirty tricks – consistent with the way they have treated not just the duke but all of the victims in this case”.

The source continued: “They think that by pulling the schedule forward 24 hours they are giving Prince Harry less time to prepare – he’s been preparing for this moment for the last three years.

In court on Tuesday, Antony White KC, for ANL, said the claims against the company were “threadbare” and had been brought too late.

He continued that its journalists provide a “compelling account of a pattern of legitimate sourcing” of the more than 50 articles that are alleged to be the products of unlawful information gathering.

White also told the court that payments to private investigators by journalists, cited by the claimants, were “examples of clutching at straws in the wind and seeking to bind them together in a way that has no proper analytical foundation”.

In written submissions, White said the publisher “strongly denies” that there was any unlawful information gathering, including voicemail interception, directed at Harry. 

He continued that the articles “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”.

Earlier on Tuesday, David Sherborne, for the group of claimants, said that Harry feels he has “endured a sustained campaign of attacks against him” because he “had the temerity to stand up” to ANL.

He said the 14 articles involved in Harry’s claim, written between 2001 and 2013 “focus primarily and in a highly intrusive and damaging way, on the relationships which he formed, or rather tried to form, during those years prior to meeting his now wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex”.

He also said that “smoke and mirrors” and “carefully orchestrated attacks” on the claimants could not “save Associated this time”.

“It is not the claim for damages that brings these claimants here. It is the uncovering of the truth of what was done to them, and Associated taking accountability for that.”

The trial is due to conclude in March, with a judgment due in writing at a later date.

With reporting from Press Association