Inside the courtroom as Prince Harry gave evidence

As Prince Harry walked into Court 15, shortly before 10.30am, silence descended.

The suited and booted journalists and lawyers seated shoulder to shoulder in the second floor, modern courtroom craned their necks for a look at the royal witness.

For all of the many cases most of us had covered, none had involved a senior member of the Royal family taking to the witness stand.

This highly anticipated appearance by the Duke of Sussex, 38, fifth in line to the throne, represented the first time that he would be challenged, under oath, about his allegations of criminality by tabloid journalists.

Whatever our feelings about such claims, this promised to be a pivotal moment in his high profile crusade.

David Sherborne, the Duke’s barrister, kicked off proceedings by addressing Mr Justice Fancourt, the affable-looking 58-year-old tasked with overseeing the case.

“Good morning my lord,” the perma-tanned barrister chirped. “May I call my first witness the Duke of Sussex?”

In his witness statement, Harry had insisted that he was “only too pleased” to subject himself to cross examination in the High Court.

But as he stood in the witness box and swore to tell the truth, holding a black bible aloft, his demeanour told a rather different story.

The Duke, wearing a blue suit and purple tie, repeatedly licked his lips, fidgeted with his suit and cleared his throat.

Mr Sherborne first dealt with the all important matter of how to address this most rare of witnesses. “There is a protocol,” he explained before suggesting that in the first instance, the Duke should be referred to as “Your Royal Highness” but that after that, his “personal preference” was simply, Prince Harry.

“That is correct,” the Duke said.

With that, Harry was asked to confirm that the contents of his witness statement were true before it was over to the Mirror’s barrister Andrew Green KC, to get things going.

“Your Royal Highness,” he began, duly following protocol. “I’m sure your legal team has explained how this process works…”

He began by acknowledging that the Duke had lived a lifetime of tabloid intrusion and that having to answer questions would be “unpleasant”.

Harry, perhaps steeling himself for the grilling ahead, simply stared straight ahead.

We had heard a lot from the Duke in recent months - the Netflix documentary, the memoir and several television interviews.

Throughout it all, he made his bitter feelings about the press known. Changing the media landscape was his “life’s work” he had said.

Yet something about the atmosphere of the courtroom added a different dimension.

Here, there was nowhere to hide, no chance to re-record, to edit, to gloss.

Harry had one chance to persuade a High Court judge that he had a valid claim. And he was going head to head with a highly skilled, “fearless and fearsome” cross examiner.

Mr Green wasted no time.

Did you select the articles yourself or were they selected by your solicitors, he asked. What were the criteria? Were they the stories that caused maximum distress?

Harry was softly spoken - at one point he was asked to speak up - and answered the questions curtly. He did not appear to be relishing the experience.

Having covered the Royal family on and off for many years, it was clear to me that he was uncomfortable. There were few, if any of the easy smiles that come so readily when he is doing something he loves.

He appeared out of his depth - I’m not sure he even realised he was being set up to skewer himself or that, to the onlookers in court, it did not appear to be going well.

Very occasionally, he made an attempt at a joke to punctuate the spiky exchanges, but they were forced and triggered only trickles of nervous laughter. This was not the happy go lucky Harry of old.

The Duke tried to bat off many of the trickier questions, insisting that they should be put to the journalists in question or to his legal team. But if anything, that inability to come out fighting elicited some sympathy - this was not the Duke at his best.

Mr Green however calmly extracted the answers he was after.

Slowly, but surely, the barrister encouraged the Duke to admit that he had little specific evidence to back up his claims of criminality, suggesting instead that the onus to explain was on the journalists.

“Are we not, Prince Harry, in the realms of total speculation?” he asked incredulously at one point.

“You are the one who is bringing the claim so it’s perfectly legitimate to ask you.”

The Duke sat in the witness box but did not once look towards the assembled press at the back of the court.

‘Little to go on’

A few of the Duke’s supporters had managed to get seats in the court. Many others queued outside hoping for a seat. One or two brandished copies of Spare, shouting words of encouragement to the Duke whenever he stepped out for a break.

In the end, as so many witnesses before him will attest, it all came down to detail.

But it was detail that Harry appeared to be lacking.

His many broad swipes at the media may have been punchy but in a court of law, sweeping generalisations were never going to be enough.

The Duke was variously forced to admit that he had “little to go on,” that he had no idea how the Mirror journalists had obtained their stories and was “at a complete loss” about where the information had come from.

So forensic was the barrister, that it took an hour to analyse just the first of 33 articles at the heart of his claim.

Harry couldn’t remember when he had first read the article - perhaps it was as recently as when he prepared the case with his solicitors?

It was an open goal. “You are, in fact, claiming damages for distress are you not?” asked Mr Green carefully.

A note of exasperation crept in as the barrister later implored the Duke to focus on a specific detail.

“Which line do you think comes from hacking a phone?” he asked.

“I can’t be sure. You would have to ask the journalists themselves,” he replied, a mantra he would repeat several times.

“There is no call data and most of the evidence has been destroyed so I have little to go on,” he said on another occasion.

Mr Green neatly summarised his position as he asked the royal claimant: “The mere fact that journalists are interested does not mean they used unlawful techniques does it?”

Was he really seeking recompense for a lifetime of trauma, rather than these specific articles, the barrister asked with a touch of incredulity.

When the Duke was particularly under pressure, he turned to address the judge directly, as if subconsciously looking for support.

Harry had given a thumbs up to supporters in court earlier in the day, but towards the end of almost five hours of cross examination, perhaps understandably, he began to look less enthusiastic about a second day in the witness box.