LEAKS to a newspaper about the Duke of Cambridge’s and Prince Harry’s time at Sandhurst would have had an unsettling effect on the officer cadets, a senior royal aide has told a court.

Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton was private secretary to William and Harry at the time when stories about their progress at the military academy appeared in The Sun.

He told jurors in the trial of The Sun’s royal editor Duncan Larcombe that such articles would have caused suspicion at a time when the princes needed to bond with fellow cadets and instructors.

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Larcombe is accused over contact with ex-Sandhurst instructor John Hardy, 44, of Oswaldtwistle, who was allegedly paid more than £23,700 for providing tips on 34 occasions between February 2006 and October 2008.

Prosecutor Michael Parroy QC asked Mr Lowther-Pinkerton: “So far as these articles were concerned at the time when they were being published, was it known what the source or sources were?”

The ex-Sandhurst man replied: “No, it was not.”

Asked what effect that lack of knowledge would have had, he said: “It was an unsettling effect. The nature of training is very intensive, particularly if it is your first time in a military environment and relies on forming a close bond with instructors and cadets.

"If you do not know where that information is coming from you begin to suspect, quite naturally, where a lot of people should not suspect.”

Ex-C Sgt Hardy is charged with misconduct in public office between February 9, 2006 and October 16, 2008. His wife Claire Hardy, 41, is accused of aiding and abetting him. Larcombe is charged with aiding, abetting, counselling and procuring John Hardy’s offence.

They are in the dock with chief reporter John Kay, executive editor Fergus Shanahan and deputy editor Geoffrey Webster, who are charged with conspiring with each other and Ministry of Defence official Bettina Jordan-Barber to commit misconduct in public office between January 1, 2004 and January 31, 2012. Webster faces a second count of conspiracy to commit misconduct with a serving officer in the Forces between November 3 and November 6, 2010.

Kay, 71, of London, Larcombe, 39, of Kent, Webster, 55, of Kent, Shanahan, 59, of Essex, and John Hardy and Claire Hardy deny the charges against them.