Prince Harry on Tuesday became the first senior British royal to give evidence in a high court trial in over 100 years as he appeared in the witness box here to allege “utterly vile” unlawful information gathering, including by phone hacking, by journalists working for the Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).

The 38-year-old Duke of Sussex accused the tabloid newspapers of “inciting hatred” against him as a young royal and casting him as a “thicko”, “cheat”, “underage drinker” and “irresponsible drug taker”, referring to some of the media labels he felt associated with over the years.