The Duke of Sussex is one of a number of high-profile figures, including Sir Elton John and Baroness Lawrence, who are suing the Mail’s publisher, Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), for “grave breaches of privacy”.
ANL has strongly denied the claims.
English told the court on Monday: “I was told by my contact that as soon as term ended at Leeds, she would be going away.”
She also pointed out that several other newspapers appeared to have received the information and written similar stories.
But David Sherborne, representing Prince Harry, said the difference was that “you were able to say with certainty that Davy is flying out the same weekend.”
“You knew perfectly well Prince Harry’s flight details,” he said, adding that this was because she was sent emails by Behr which he claimed detailed the couple’s flight booking.
English said she did not remember receiving the email, and it was “uncharacteristic” of conversations she had had with Behr. She denied asking him to get flight details, or using them in stories.
She claimed she did not have a good relationship with Behr, and had “been on the receiving end of some not very pleasant behaviour”.
“You don’t understand the lived experience of a woman working in this business and the men who are difficult to deal with,” she told Sherborne.
English, who joined the Mail in 1999 and became the newspaper’s royal editor in 2020, also said information for a story about Prince Harry giving details about Davy around a campfire in Botswana came from someone who was there.
In a witness statement, English said the details for the 2004 Daily Mail story, headlined “How Harry fell in love”, were shared by colleague Sam Greenhill.
“Sam told me that one of the people that Prince Harry had spoken with round the campfire got in touch with the newspaper when news of the relationship broke and gave this information to us,” she told the court.
“Prince Harry hadn’t told them who his girlfriend was but had described her so that, when the stories about Chelsy Davy broke, they realised the significance of what they had been told.
“I thought at the time that the tip was from a contact of Sam’s, but now understand it just came in to the news desk.”
