Ed Sheeran gave evidence at the High Court on Monday

Ed Sheeran has told the High Court he does not “borrow” ideas from unknown songwriters without credit.

The singer-songwriter has been accused by two other songwriters of copying parts of his 2017 hit Shape Of You.

Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue’s barrister suggested Sheeran treated lesser-known songwriters differently from famous ones.

Sheeran denied this, telling the court he had cleared parts of songs with “lots” of unknown artists.

The shape of You was number one for 14 weeks in the UK in 2017, becoming the best-selling song of the year around the world.

On Friday, their barrister Andrew Sutcliffe QC claimed Sheeran “borrows ideas and throws them into his songs, sometimes he will acknowledge it but sometimes he won’t”.

But Sheeran denied the claim that he is a “magpie” who lifts other people’s work without acknowledgement, pointing out that he has often shared credit with lesser-known artists, including Shivers and Visiting Hours, and a song that sampled an “unknown composer’s” work from Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

“All those examples are not famous artists that we’ve cleared songs with and that’s what I have to say on that,” he told the court.