In a High Court hearing, the Duke of Sussex has insisted that intimate details about his relationship with former girlfriend Chelsy Davy, including their “sleeping arrangements,” were obtained unlawfully by the Mail on Sunday.
The court heard that an article published in January 2010 contained “granular detail” about the couple’s plans as a couple, as well as Harry’s “preferences as to where he likes to spend the night.” David Sherborne, Harry’s barrister, said the duke’s evidence is “absolutely firm” that only a close friend of his or Ms Davy’s would have known the private information and “would not possibly have betrayed their confidence.”
Other details published in the newspaper included how the Duke of Sussex had given his then on-and-off partner a “set of keys” while they navigated their long-distance relationship. However, Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Mail on Sunday, “vehemently” denies the “preposterous allegations.”
The article by Mail on Sunday journalist Katie Nicholl reportedly detailed “intimate and specific details” about Harry’s private life, including how Ms Davy’s friends had said the prince was a regular fixture at her Belgravia home before she left the UK for Christmas.
The court heard that Ms Nicholl’s evidence was that her notebooks indicated she obtained the “minute details” from a man named Garth Gibbs, who was not “a member of the royal family” nor “some young aristocratic socialite.” Instead, he was living alone in semi-retirement on the Isle of Wight, with his cat as his sole companion.
Mr Sherborne suggested Ms Nicholl was applying her “familiar unlawful information gathering” techniques, adding that it was “utterly implausible that this person would have supplied that level of information about the Duke of Sussex and Ms Chelsy Davy.”
Summarising part of the duke’s written evidence, Mr Sherborne said Harry had detailed the “distress” and “paranoia” he had been caused, stating, “But 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 in the way that he has so publicly done?”
The publisher’s lawyer, Antony White KC, told the court in written submissions that the “social circles of the celebrity claimants” regularly provided information to the press about their private lives “on a confidential basis.” However, Harry and the other claimants maintain that the details were obtained unlawfully.
