No one who has admitted phone hacking has said Prince Harry was among victims, says Mirror Group – as it happened

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Closing summary

Today’s proceedings in the high court are coming to a close. The day has focused upon the claims made by the Duke of Sussex. Here’s a summary of what happened today:

• Prince Harry did not arrive in court in person – to the annoyance of the presiding judge.

• The duke’s barrister, David Sherborne, told the court Harry had left Los Angeles the previous evening because he had been celebrating his daughter’s birthday.

• Mr Justice Fancourt said he was “a little surprised” to hear the duke would not be attending court on Monday. The judge said he gave a direction earlier in the trial that witnesses should be available the day before their evidence was due to be heard in case the legal teams’ opening speeches ran short.

• Sherborne outlined some of the details of Harry’s claim, including Mirror Group articles that were submitted as evidence of unlawful information gathering, such as phone hacking.

• Harry was subjected to the interception of voicemails, the use of a large number of private investigators to obtain information about him and the various aspects of his personal life, as well as “blagging” billing data and other private information.

• The claim covers three periods, Sherborne says, from 1996 to 1999, from 1999 to 2006, and then from 2007 to 2011.

• Sherborne told the court Diana, Princess of Wales was a “huge target” for MGN’s newspapers, adding that certain unlawful activities in relation to her would have also affected Harry.

• Under Piers Morgan’s leadership, Daily Mirror reporters allegedly hacked the phone of Diana, Princess of Wales, Sherborne told the court.

• Andrew Green KC said there was no evidence that hacking of Harry’s phone took place. “Zilch, zero, nil, de nada, niente, nothing,” he said.

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Updated at 12.16 EDT

The proceedings have concluded for the day – but will continue tomorrow with Prince Harry in the witness box.

It was always obvious that the security arrangements around the Duke of Sussex were unlike any one else in the country, Green says.

As a result, any journalist would know it was a huge risk to target Harry especially after the convictions of Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman at the News of the World, he says.

There is no evidence that Harry was being hacked on a systemic basis, Green adds.

Mirror Group says no one who has admitted phone hacking has said Duke of Sussex was among victims, says its barrister

Andrew Green KC is now detailing the Mirror Group’s defence against Prince Harry’s claims.

There’s no evidence that hacking of Harry’s phone took place, Green says. “Zilch, zero, nil, de nada, niente, nothing.”

Not one person who has come forward to admit phone hacking or has witnessed it has ever said the Duke of Sussex was among the victims, Green says.

Dan Evans was the “designated hacker for the Mirror” in the early 00s, the peak of phone hacking, Green says. But Evans has never suggested he or anyone else attempted to hack the duke’s phone, he says.

Green is listing other journalists who have all admitted hacking but have never listed Harry as one of their victims.

Updated at 10.54 EDT

The court has risen for a short break.

Jim Waterson

Sherborne is wrapping up his opening statement concerning Harry’s claim.

It is the use of these methods by a national newspaper group that has brought him here, not a wider vendetta against the press.

By bringing this claim he has been able to focus the attention that comes with his position on these activities and they have been carried out not just by journalists but they have been concealed by senior members of the board and the legal department. The impact this has had on him and others is something he describes graphically in his witness statement.

Updated at 11.02 EDT

Sherborne said that in his witness statement, yet to be made public, Harry describes the “constant stream of stories” about his relationship with Davy.

The barrister said the duke refers to “how little chance this relationship was given because of this” and describes how it affected his relationships going forward.

Referring to articles from the time of Harry’s relationship with Davy, Sherborne said to Mr Justice Fancourt that he would notice “how young Prince Harry looks”.

“He is little more than a child, as was Ms Davy at the time,” the barrister continued. “As he explains, it was as if they never felt they were on their own, which placed a huge amount of strain on their relationship and … ultimately led Ms Davy to decide a royal life was not for her.”

He added: “It also caused their circle of friends to become smaller and smaller, meaning that relationships were lost entirely unnecessarily.”

Sherborne said that is something common to many alleged victims of unlawful information gathering.

He also said press intrusion led to Harry “suffering bouts of depression as a result”, which Sherborne said was “hardly surprising” and also something that other alleged victims of unlawful information gathering had described.

The barrister added: “Who could forgive him for being protective as he grew up for future relationships, seeing … what those around him would be subjected to.”

Updated at 10.29 EDT

My colleague, media editor Jim Waterson, has written up this take on today’s hearing, focusing on claims that under Piers Morgan’s leadership, Daily Mirror reporters allegedly hacked the phone of Diana, Princess of Wales.

He writes:

The high court heard that Diana had regularly talked to Barrymore in the months before her death, at a time when they were two of the most famous people in Britain. The television presenter was “struggling with coming out as gay”, as well as dealing with an addiction to alcohol and drugs.

On Monday, a phone-hacking trial heard extracts from a letter in which Diana offered to support Barrymore, who was one of the nation’s leading television stars. In one letter, sent in early 1997, the princess provided her phone number and wrote: “Dear Michael. What joy it was to finally meet you tonight. I did want to emphasise that I’m here for you – whenever.

“It’s very easy to pop round and see you or please telephone now you have my number. You’re doing just fine and believe me, I know. So take great care and lots of love from Diana.”

Months later, Diana wrote again to say she was “devastated” that details of their supposedly secret meetings had been obtained by the Daily Mirror. She apologised to Barrymore for the leak, expressed her disgust with the tabloid press, and said she did not know how the news had come out, given “nobody knew about our conversations”. The court heard that Barrymore did not reply to this letter, highlighting the “isolation” caused by press intrusion.

David Sherborne, the barrister who is acting for Diana’s younger son, Prince Harry, in the trial against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), said the simple explanation was that journalists working for the Daily Mirror had hacked Diana’s voicemails.

The lawyer also suggested the Daily Mirror’s then editor, Piers Morgan, was disingenuous when he later wrote in his autobiography that he had “heard rumours” about a friendship between Diana and Barrymore.

Read the full article here:

The ups and downs and ins and outs of Harry’s relationship with Chelsy Davy were all revealed by the three Mirror titles, Sherborne says.

All the articles have the “tell tale” signs of unlawful information gathering, he says.

Sherborne reads the headline to an article about when the duke met Davy’s father: “When Harry Met Daddy – the biggest danger to wildlife in Africa”.

He says the article was written by journalists with links to unlawful information gathering.

Updated at 11.11 EDT

Jim Waterson

A key part of Harry’s legal case against Mirror Group Newspapers relies on a precedent set by a court case involving a chimney sweep that took place 300 years ago.

The 1722 trial of Armory v Delamirie involved an individual who found a metal piece of jewellery set with gems while cleaning a fireplace. When the chimney sweep had the item valued, a jeweller surreptitiously removed the gems – before handing back a number of empty metal sockets.

The chimney sweep sued and a judge ruled that in the absence of the original gems, it must be assumed that the jewels were of the highest possible value that could fit the empty metal sockets.

The legal ruling set a precedent that if the court can tell that evidence is missing, then the assumption should be that what is missing is of the highest possible value that would fit the hole.

David Sherborne, Prince Harry’s barrister, told the high court on Monday that the Mirror’s mass-deletion of emails potentially relating to Harry’s case was damning. He evoked the chimney sweep’s case from 1722, arguing the judge should interpret the deletion of potential evidence as “inferences of unlawful activity”.

Sherborne evoked the same case in last year’s Wagatha Christie libel trial between Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy. In that trial, he successfully argued that the loss of a mobile phone in the North Sea containing WhatsApp messages should be interpreted as an attempt to hide important evidence.

Updated at 09.36 EDT

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