Prince Harry lawyers accuse Daily Mail publisher of ‘drip feeding’ information ahead of trial

The group alleges that ANL carried out unlawful activities such as hiring private investigators to place listening devices inside cars, “blagging” private records, and gaining access to private phone conversations.

At a hearing on Monday, the High Court heard that each side is awaiting further information from the other before they can fully prepare for the case.

ANL denies any of the allegations made against them and has described the claims as “simply preposterous”.

In written submissions, Antony White KC, for ANL, said: “Since the October case management conference, the claimants have continued to ‘drip-feed’ disclosure, including manifestly incomplete but nevertheless highly significant documentation from early 2016.”

He revealed that they are still missing several key witness statements.

David Sherborne, who represented the group taking legal action against ANL, told the court that 11 boxes of evidence had been looked at, but he wants a further 36 boxes to be looked at.

In his submission, he revealed: “The defendant refuses to search any of these boxes, essentially on the basis that the process of reviewing the boxes was time-consuming.

“The drip-feed of disclosure by the defendant from crown archive demonstrates a fundamental failure to carry out proper searches.

“The defendant has repeatedly said to the court that it has carried out thorough and ‘generous’ disclosure, but this is plainly not the case.”

On Monday, it was agreed that 12 boxes would be searched, but only the boxes that had matching codes to the boxes that had previously contained relevant documents.

At an initial hearing last month, Mr White said it was “highly likely” that a research team for the group, including the duke, had relevant documents about when some of those individuals knew they may be able to claim.

He alleged the team was using “camouflage” by publishing articles on a website so that the group could claim they became aware of certain information through the website.

Mr Sherborne said the allegation was “simply untrue” and rejected a claim that lawyers for the group had been “cherry picking” documents.

Justice Nicklin published his judgement, stating: “My conclusion is that the documents held by members of the research team, including documents that came into their possession prior to the engagement agreement, are within the control of the claimants for the purposes of standard disclosure, those documents must be properly searched and such documents that fall within the terms of standard disclosure must be disclosed.”

He revealed he had made no findings on the allegations of unlawful information gathering.

His decision comes before the start of a two-day preliminary hearing for the trial, which is expected in January.