Prince Harry's stand: What has happened so far in court?

King Charles' younger son's stand gainst a media empire raised questions about the royal's next move.

Prince Harry and seven others have accused Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) of "grave breaches of privacy".

Antony White KC defended the publisher as saying that the reporters behind the stories had provided a "compelling account of a pattern of legitimate sourcing of articles".

White, according to reports, said in written submissions that the the stars had "leaky" social circles and that a "pattern of misconduct... is simply not made out".

The claimants have alleged ANL of "clear, systematic and sustained use of unlawful information gathering" for stories between 1993 and "beyond" 2018. They also accused that the publisher hired private investigators and blagging.

In their joint opening statement on Monday, Harry and others made allegations against senior Mail and Mail on Sunday journalists, saying they were "engaged in or complicit in the culture of unlawful information gathering that wrecked the lives of so many".

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".

White, in his opening argument for the publisher, 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 this was problematic because such "generic" evidence had been "struck out" of the case by the judge, 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 accusations in the case were revealed in 2022. Lawyers of the claiments said they had evidence of private investigators having used phone tapping, or intercepting phone calls.

Meanwhile, White has said the 'only direct evidence' of phone hacking and landline tapping had come from one private investigator, Gavin Burrows, who had since said a 'witness statement' presented by the claimants' legal team was not written by him, and that the signature on it is a forgery.

Prince Harry will be the first witness called to give evidence and could step into the witness box on Wednesday.