Prince Harry has said the thought of Piers Morgan and reporters at the Daily Mirror “earwigging into my mother’s private and sensitive messages” made him “physically sick”.

The High Court phone hacking trial previously heard that letters between Diana and former television entertainer Michael Barrymore about their “highly sensitive meetings” show her private exchanges had been intercepted.

In his written witness statement in court on Tuesday, the Duke of Sussex said he was “shocked, disgusted and appalled” when he was shown the letters and said it was “safe to assume” his mother and Mr Barrymore would have been exchanging voicemails about their private meetings.

Harry said: “The thought of Piers Morgan and his band of journalists earwigging into my mother’s private and sensitive messages, in the same way as they have me, and then having given her a ‘nightmare time’ three months prior to her death in Paris, makes me feel physically sick and even more determined to hold those responsible, including Mr Morgan, accountable for their vile and entirely unjustified behaviour.”

The prince further criticised Mr Morgan, who left Good Morning Britain for saying he did not believe claims made by Meghan Markle during her and Harry’s explosive Oprah Winfrey interview.

Harry alleges the former newspaper editor has been “intimidating” him and his wife ever since he launched legal proceedings against the publisher of the Daily Mirror.

”Unfortunately, as a consequence of me bringing my Mirror Group claim, both myself and my wife have been subjected to a barrage of horrific personal attacks and intimidation from Piers Morgan, who was the editor of the Daily Mirror between 1995 and 2004, presumably in retaliation and in the hope that I will back down, before being able to hold him properly accountable for his unlawful activity towards both me and my mother during his editorship,” his statement said.

Mr Morgan has repeatedly denied any involvement in phone-hacking and last month said he was “not going to take lectures on privacy invasion” from Harry.

Harry is one of a number of high-profile figures bringing claims against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) over alleged unlawful information gathering, including phone-hacking. MGN is contesting the claims and has either denied or not admitted each of them.

The publisher also argues that some of the claimants have brought their legal action too late.

The trial continues.

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