Suffolk star Ed Sheeran has won his High Court battle over a copyright case of his hit song Shape of You.

Mr Sheeran, who grew up in Framlingham, had been involved in a High Court legal row with two songwriters, Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue.

Mr Chokri and Mr O'Donoghue claimed the 2017 song ripped off parts of their 2015 track, Oh Why.

But Mr Justice Zacaroli's judgement rejecting their claim was announced this morning.

In his judgement, he concluded: "Mr Sheeran had not heard Oh Why and in any event that he did not deliberately copy the Oh I phrase from the Oh Why hook”.

“Mr Chokri is undoubtedly a serious and talented songwriter and while his management were unsurprisingly trying to create some hype around the release of the Solace EP, it had limited success.

“In my judgment, the possibility that these attempts might have led to it coming to Mr Sheeran’s attention – either because someone he was associated with played it to him or because he found it himself – is at best speculative.”

The judge said the phrases in the songs at the heart of the legal dispute “play very different roles”, with the Oh Why hook reflecting the track’s “slow, brooding and questioning mood”, while Shape of You’s Oh I phrase was “something catchy to fill the bar” before the next part of the song.

He continued: “The use of the first four notes of the rising minor pentatonic scale for the melody is so short, simple, commonplace and obvious in the context of the rest of the song that it is not credible that Mr Sheeran sought out inspiration from other songs to come up with it.”

During the 11-day trial, Mr Chokri, a grime artist who performs under the name Sami Switch, and his co-writer Mr O’Donoghue, claimed an “Oh I” hook in Shape Of You is “strikingly similar” to an “Oh Why” refrain in their track.

Ed-Sheeran-Posts-Video-Message-After-Court-Rules-I-ffffffffa4113518

Legal proceedings were first launched in 2018 by the Shape of You co-authors, who asked the High Court to declare they had not infringed Mr Chokri and Mr O'Donoghue's copyright.

In July 2018, Mr Chokri and Mr O’Donoghue issued their own claim for “copyright infringement, damages and an account of profits in relation to the alleged infringement”.

During the case Mr Sheeran denied he “borrows” ideas from unknown songwriters without acknowledgement and insisted he “always tried to be completely fair” in crediting people who contribute to his albums.

Anthony Ricigliano, a forensic musicologist, concluded in a report that it was “objectively unlikely” that any similarities between the 2017 track and the song 'Oh Why' by Mr Chokri “result from copying”.

Shape of You was a worldwide hit, becoming the best-selling song of 2017 in the UK and the most streamed track in Spotify’s history.