In a witness statement read out at the High Court in London, Furnish said he and his partner had a long and difficult history with the Mail.
He said the paper had, despite partly moving with the times, “published countless judgemental, and narrow-minded stories” that were “clearly designed to undermine who we are and how we live our lives”.
He said one story, published in December 2010, included the publication of their son’s birth certificate before they had received it.
“The world had no idea we were having a baby”, Furnish said, adding that the process leading up to the birth was run “like a military operation”.
“For The Mail to access it before the parents themselves – it was outrageous, invasive, and upsetting. It left us asking, ‘If they can get this, what else can they get?'”
Another article, from August 2015, referred to an urgent ambulance journey during which, Furnish’s statement said, “I had never heard anyone in so much pain as Elton was then”.
Referring to the incident, Furnish said “none of this was publicised – it was completely private”.
He said at the time the couple had assumed the information in the article came from a leak “within the ambulance or hospital, somebody being indiscreet”.
“Elton and I are profoundly affected by the uncertainty of not knowing how many times we were targeted, especially in relation to Elton’s medicals”, Furnish said.
“We still don’t know what was really done to us,” he added.
ANL strongly denies wrongdoing, with lawyers for the publisher previously telling the court that the claims made by Furnish and Sir Elton are “unsupported by any evidence before the court and utterly baseless”.
The trial continues and is expected to end in March.
