‘It’s a lot’: Prince Harry breaks down in court as he finishes giving evidence in phone hacking case

After more than seven hours on the stand, an emotionally drained Prince Harry had to fight back tears before finishing his evidence today.

Prince Harry waves at crowds as he arrives at the High Court to resume giving evidence against the Mirror Group. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Prince Harry fought back tears on the stand as he finished giving evidence in his phone hacking case on Wednesday, UK time, having endured more than seven hours of cross and re-examination.

The Duke of Sussex’s lawyer, David Sherborne, concluded Harry’s time in court by asking how the experience had been, facing such scrutiny with the world watching.

“It’s a lot,” an emotional Harry said after a long pause, suppressing tears.

Harry is among multiple claimants suing Mirror Group Newspapers. He accuses journalists from tabloid newspapers The Daily Mirror, The Sunday Mirror and The Sunday People of using illegal methods, including phone hacking, to obtain stories on him during multiple periods between 1996 and 2011.

There are more than 100 claimants in total, including singer Cheryl Cole, former footballer Ian Wright, actor Ricky Tomlinson and the estate of George Michael, though Harry is one of only four who will have their specific, “representative” claims heard.

The other three are Michael Turner and Nikki Sanderson, both actors, and Fiona Wightman, who is the ex-wife of comedian Paul Whitehouse.

Harry arriving to give evidence on Wednesday. Picture: Kate Green/Getty Images

The lawyer representing MGN, Andrew Green, told Harry he was in the real of “total speculation” on Wednesday, insisting the Duke had no actual evidence the articles he had cited as products of unlawful information gathering were sourced via phone hacking.

“I entirely disagree,” Harry responded.

In a series of combative exchanges, Harry was repeatedly forced to concede he did not know the answers to Mr Green’s questions. The lawyer berated him for talking back.

“This isn’t about you asking me questions, this is me asking you questions,” Mr Green said.

Harry’s ‘awful’ time in Australia

Earlier in his testimony, Harry said he had an “awful” time on his gap year in Australia because he was followed by press photographers.

He highlighted an incident where photographers turned up to a deserted beach in Noosa.

Harry said his gap year, which he took in 2003 aged 19, was “suffocating” and claimed private investigators might have been paid to watch him.

On Tuesday he told the court that it was “incredibly suspicious” that photographers knew where he was in Noosa.

“It was a public beach, but not busy or popular, so I’m unclear how anyone had known we were there, to be in the right place at the right time to take photographs,” Harry said in his witness statement.

“I wasn’t aware of anyone taking photographs at the time.

“The fact that a photographer turned up on a random beach in Noosa - where no other people were - is incredibly suspicious.”

Britain's Prince Harry waves to fans as he arrives at the High Court. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP)

Break-up headline was mean

Prince Harry described an article about his break-up with Ms Davy with the headline “Hooray Harry’s dumped” as “mean”.

He said quotes were attributed to a source “at the palace” but he said no one at the palace knew about the split because it was private.

“I’m not entirely sure how anyone would have known we had broken up because again, we didn’t talk about this regularly,” he tells the court.

Chelsy lapdancer resemblance ‘factually incorrect’

Harry has said that a story in the Mirror that claimed a lapdancer at the Spearmint Rhino strip club bore a passing resemblance to Chelsy Davy was “factually incorrect”.

The story claimed that Harry received a flurry of angry phone calls from his then girlfriend after another newspaper reported that he had visited the notorious strip club.

Harry has suggested that they got the story by analysing call data and said it was “very suspicious” that the Mirror had Ms Davy’s number.

Prince Harry and his girlfriend Chelsy Davy attend the Cartier International Polo match at the Guards Polo Club on 30 July, 2006 in Egham, England. (Photo by MJ Kim/Getty Images)

“It’s very suspicious that they had her number,” Harry said.

“I don’t believe she would give Mirror Group or any journalist her number,” he adds.

Harry points to three payments and says one of them is “probably to someone that works in the club” as that is “what I would do if I was a journalist”

The Duke kicked off Wednesday’s proceedings by giving evidence about a story in the People newspaper which claimed he was let off marches at Sandhurst. He claimed the story was not in the public interest.

Andrew Green KC has invited the prince to speculate what would be in the public interest.

Prince Harry says a “life threatening injury” might warrant the public’s interest, but doesn’t give any other examples.

Piers Morgan takes swipe at Harry

Piers Morgan took a huge swipe at Prince Harry’s “privacy campaign” after the duke’s High Court grilling on Tuesday.

Harry took multiple jabs at former Mirror editor Piers Morgan during the first day of his evidence.

In a 55-page witness statement, the prince claimed Piers’ behaviour was “vile and entirely unjustified”.

Speaking to Sky News yesterday Morgan said: “I didn’t see it but I wish him luck with his privacy campaign - look forward to reading it in his next book.”