Prince Harry's legal claim that Mail journalists paid private investigators to hack celebrities' phones was yesterday compared to 'clutching at straws in the wind'.
Lawyers for Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday (TMOS), said the legal action brought by the Duke of Sussex and six other high-profile claimants was 'not made out'.
The newspaper group denies the allegations, saying claims of hacking, landline tapping, and other unlawful information gathering are 'preposterous' and 'simply untrue'.
Seven claimants - Prince Harry, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, the mothered of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, former Lib Dem MP Sir Simon Hughes and actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost - allege they were targeted by the newspapers.
But Antony White KC, for Associated, told the High Court that journalists would give evidence that they used legitimate sources to gather information.
In one example, a 1997 front page article reporting that the Government was to announce a public inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the information was given to the Daily Mail's editor personally by the Home Secretary at the time, Jack Straw.
Other reports at the centre of the legal action were said to have been sourced from Sir Elton's own publicist and Harry's Press secretary.
The Duke of Sussex arriving for the second day of his trial against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail On Sunday
Model Elizabeth Hurley accompanied by her son Damian, pictured outside the Royal Courts of Justice where they joined Prince Harry to observe the second day of the trial
David Sherborne, the barrister representing the duke, Ms Hurley and the five other claimants: Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Sadie Frost, Sir Simon Hughes and Baroness Doreen Lawrence
Mr White said some of the claimants had 'leaky' friends who would talk to journalists, including among Harry's social circle.
The barrister said evidence gathered from the journalists named in the legal action - most of whom will be witnesses at the High Court - provided 'a compelling account of a pattern of legitimate sourcing of articles'.
In written legal arguments submitted to the court, MrWhite said: 'The claimants' inferential case of phone hacking and phone tapping is met and convincingly rebutted.
'The pattern of misconduct the claimants seek to establish is simply not made out.'
Mr White said the burden of proof lay on the claimants to prove their case, and said documents showing payments from newspapers to private investigators did not prove that journalists had commissioned unlawful information gathering.
He told the court that the claimants' reliance on such documents in their legal case were 'examples of clutching at straws in the wind and seeking to bind them together in a way that has no proper analytical foundation.'
A court sketch drawn on Monday showing Sir Simon Hughes, Prince Harry, Elizabeth Hurley and her son Damian, watching David Sherborne as he outlined the case
In evidence to the Leveson Inquiry in 2012, then-Mail editor Paul Dacre said the newspaper had used 'inquiry agents' until 2007, when their use was banned, but said a major internal investigation had found no phone hacking at Associated.
Mr White said dozens of journalists would give evidence to deny the allegations brought by the Duke of Sussex and other claimants.
He said: 'From the top down, Associated's editors, desk heads and journalists, many of whom have worked at the company for many years and even decades, are lining up to reject the claimants' allegations of habitual and widespread phone hacking, phone tapping and blagging within the organisation whilst acknowledging where appropriate the use of TPIs (third party investigators) to obtain information prior to April 2007 when their use was largely banned.'
Mr White's said the 'only direct evidence' of phone hacking and landline tapping had come from one private investigator, Gavin Burrows, who had since said a 'witness statement' presented by the claimants' legal team was not written by him, and that the signature on it is a forgery.
Prince Harry will be the first witness called to give evidence and could step into the witness box today (weds).
He was in court yesterday to hear his barrister David Sherborne outline the claimants' case, but left at lunchtime. Miss Hurley and her son Damian also left the court after the morning session.
Mr Sherborne said the Duke of Sussex felt he had 'endured a sustained campaign of attacks against him for having had the temerity to stand up to Associated'.
The barrister told the court that the claimants would seek 'significant' damages if they won the case. Legal costs have been estimated at £38.8million.
Mr Sherborne said: 'It is not the claim for damages that brings these claimants here.
'It is the uncovering of the truth of what was done to them, and Associated taking accountability for that.'