On the second day of a hearing in London's High Court, the witness statements from the six claimants in a lawsuit — alleging that phone taps and hacking was encouraged by the Daily Mail's parent company — have been released.
A number of the claimants were present at court, including Prince Harry, who had flown to the UK from California to be present at the hearing, but none of them spoke during the hearing.
Lawyers representing the six claimants are putting their arguments to a judge, hoping to be given the green light to proceed to a trial.
In that process, the court was read the witness statements from each claimant.
Here's what each said.
Prince Harry
Prince Harry's witness statement said the extent to which he was a victim of the alleged phone tapping and other privacy breaches was concealed by Buckingham Palace to avoid opening a "can of worms".
"The institution was, without a doubt, withholding information from me for a long time," his statement said.
“It was made clear to me that the Royal Family did not sit in the witness box because that could open up a can of worms."
He said leaving the UK and learning of other people within — or associated with the Royal Family — had sought legal action over phone hacking against the press "burst a bubble".
Prince Harry claimed that his chief motivation for suing Associated Newspapers was over it's "unchecked power, influence and criminality" in the public sphere.
"The evidence I have seen shows that Associated's journalists are criminals with journalistic powers, which should concern every single one of us," Prince Harry's statement said.
"The British public deserve to know the full extent of this cover-up and I feel it is my duty to expose it.
"If the most-influential newspaper company can successfully evade justice then, in my opinion, the whole country is doomed."
Elizabeth Hurley
In her witness statement, actor Elizabeth Hurley detailed exactly how she believed a private investigator, Gavin Burrows, hired by Associated Newspapers, tapped her phone.
"It transpired that landline-tapping was Mr Burrows' unique trade selling point and that it was a routine and essential part of the service he offered to The Mail on Sunday from a menu of unwholesome things," Ms Hurley's witness statement said.
"This man would use cassette recorders and insert them into the landline cables of the green BT (a major British telco) junction box cabinets on the street. Sometimes he also put them in manholes."
She also claimed microphones were taped to the windows of her house.
Her statement said that, when she became suspicious, she had asked BT to check her lines, but was assured they were secure.
"[Mr Burrows] had also stolen my financial information, my travel information and my medical information when I was pregnant," she said.
"Hugh [Grant] and I, and many others, were victims of this."
It's important to note that Mr Burrows has signed his own witness statement, denying Ms Hurley's claims, saying he was never contracted by the Daily Mail to conduct "unlawful information gathering".
Sir Elton John
In a statement from Sir Elton and his filmmaker husband, David Furnish, the couple said their friend and fellow claimant, Elizabeth Hurley, warned them they were targeted by Associated Newspapers.
The couple alleged that their landline was tapped by a private investigator on behalf of Associated Newspapers and that it unlawfully obtained the birth certificate of their son Zachary.
"I have found the Mail's deliberate invasion into my medical health and medical details surrounding the birth of our son, Zachary, abhorrent and outside even the most basic standards of human decency," Mr Furnish said in his statement.
"How can you protect yourself and your loved ones against an enemy you can't see, and that does not respect the bounds of the law, or the boundaries of one's private home?"
Sadie Frost
Sadie Frost's witness statement said she believed the Daily Mail hired a private investigator to report details on the breakdown of her marriage to Jude Law.
Her statement said Mr Law believed the information being published about their divorce was being leaked by her.
"It is a horrible feeling, having the person you love accusing you of something you did not do and having to receive phone calls accusing you or your friends of leaking information," Ms Frost's statement said.
Ms Frost said the reports came at a time when there was "stigma around mental health" and she "did not want the world knowing her private business".
"I began to feel that I could not openly speak to the doctors, my friends or my family about it, otherwise it would somehow end up in the papers," she wrote.
"I began to shut down. I stopped eating and started to lose a lot of weight. I felt suicidal."
Baroness Doreen Lawrence
Baroness Lawrence is the mother of teenager Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered in a 1993 racist attack. The Daily Mail covered her son's death intensely and campaigned for justice for Stephen.
In her witness statement, she spoke of her sense of betrayal that she was allegedly targeted by the publication.
"The idea that something else had been going on behind the scenes, completely hidden from me, that I had been played for a fool, and for so many years, was deeply shocking and upsetting to me," Baroness Lawrence's statement said.
Baroness Lawrence also said Associated Newspapers' approach to her lawsuit reminded her of the police's response when she asked questions about the investigation into her son's murder, by trying "to stop me taking action and to deny, hide and conceal the things they had done wrong from me".
"I saw it as a sign of guilt and I do now," her statement said.
"There should be nothing to hide if you have done nothing wrong. I believe the truth, when it emerges, will show their guilt just like it did with the police."
Associated Newspapers denies allegations
In its court submissions, Associated Newspapers said the claims were based on inference rather than evidence, and that the claimants had provided little or no evidence of unlawful information-gathering by its journalists, which it strongly denies.
"We utterly and unambiguously refute these preposterous smears, which appear to be nothing more than a pre-planned and orchestrated attempt to drag the Mail titles into the phone-hacking scandal concerning articles up to 30 years old," a spokesperson said in October last year.
"These unsubstantiated and highly defamatory claims — based on no credible evidence — appear to be simply a fishing expedition by claimants and their lawyers, some of whom have already pursued cases elsewhere."
The hearing will continue for another two days before the judge is expected to decide whether the lawsuit will go to trial as early as next week.
ABC/wires
