Prince Harry suffered a sustained campaign of attacks for standing up to the powerful Daily Mail over intrusion into his private life, his lawyer has told a UK court where he and others are suing the paper’s publisher.

The Duke of Sussex, 41, and six other claimants including singer Elton John are ⁠suing the Mail’s publisher Associated Newspapers at the High Court for violations of their privacy over more than two decades from the early 1990s.

The claims include hacking voicemail messages, bugging landlines and “blagging” – obtaining private information by deception.

Associated calls the allegations smears, saying their journalists had legitimate sources for information, including the celebrities’ gossipy social circles.

Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne said that “no one sold more copies” for tabloids in the United Kingdom than Harry, noting ‌huge press interest in the royals, particularly exclusives about the prince’s private life.

The stories focused “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,” Sherborne added.

Fourteen articles in question included stories that Harry was to be asked to be godfather to his former nanny’s child, details about travel plans and intimate personal information involving his former girlfriend Chelsy Davy, Sherborne said.

That caused “distress and paranoia” for Harry, the lawyer said as the prince watched in court.

“Given what we’ve seen, is it any wonder that he feels that way or, as he explains, that he feels he has ‌endured a sustained campaign of attacks against him for having had the temerity to stand up to Associated?” Sherborne said.

Harry may start giving evidence on Wednesday, earlier than expected, after opening submissions finished ahead of schedule.

He became the first royal in a UK witness box in 130 years during his 2023 lawsuit against ‍another tabloid group.

His latest case is part of a very personal crusade for the prince, who as a boy lost his mother Diana in a 1997 car crash during a pursuit by paparazzi.

His partying habits, girlfriends prior to marrying, fractious family relations and departure to live in the United States, have long been a staple of UK media.

Associated says the stories about Harry originated from contacts, press officers or other legitimate sources.

“Associated has provided an explanation, through a long series of witnesses, of the sourcing by its journalists of the 50-plus articles alleged by the claimants to be the product of unlawful information gathering,” its lawyer Antony White told the court, promising “a compelling account of lawful sourcing”.

As well as Harry, John and the other claimants – John’s husband David Furnish, actors Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, anti-racism campaigner Doreen Lawrence and ex-MP Simon Hughes – will also give evidence over nine weeks.

Detailing John’s case, Sherborne said that for a 2010 article about the singer and his husband David Furnish having a child through surrogacy in the US, the Mail had ‍obtained a copy of their son’s birth certificate before they did.

Associated denies the information was unlawfully obtained.