Meghan Markle demands copies of letter she wrote to dad are handed over as she faces fresh High Court showdown
MEGHAN Markle has today demanded the Mail on Sunday hand over copies of the letter she wrote to her estranged dad – as the paper launches an application to appeal her privacy win.
A High Court judge last month ruled the Mail on Sunday breached the Duchess of Sussex‘s privacy when it printed extracts of a five-page letter she wrote to Thomas Markle.
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But a High Court today heard the Mail on Sunday had requested permission to appeal the duchess’ privacy and copyright win.
If the application for an appeal is successful, it means Meghan, 39, may face another showdown this time in the Court of Appeal – although she may not have to appear in person.
And at a remote hearing on Tuesday, the duchess’ lawyers asked the High Court to order Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) – the publisher of The Mail On Sunday and MailOnline – to hand over any copies of the letter to Mr Markle and destroy any electronic copies of it or any notes made about it.
Ian Mill QC, representing Meghan, also applied for an injunction to “restrain the acts of copyright infringement and misuse of private information”.
In written submissions, Mr Mill said: “The defendant has failed to deliver up copies it has of the letter such that the threat to infringe and further to misuse her private information remains real and, inexplicably, the defendant has still not removed the infringing articles from MailOnline.”
It comes as…
- The Oprah interview of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry won’t be cancelled even if Prince Philip’s condition worsens, it was claimed
- ITV is expected to air the interview on Monday, 8pm
- The Royal Family have been united in prayer for the 99-year-old duke as he was transferred to a different hospital
- The Duke and Duchess of Sussex created a list of good deeds for people to hang on their fridges
- Oprah hinted Meghan faced an ‘almost unsurvivable’ struggle
Today’s hearing is expected to deal with applications for ANL to pay Meghan’s legal costs of bringing the case as well as the remaining parts of her claim, including unresolved issues relating to copyright.
Last month, the judge ruled that the publication of Meghan’s letter to her father was “manifestly excessive and hence unlawful”.
In a ruling in February, Mr Justice Warby granted Meghan summary judgment in relation to her privacy claim, meaning she won that claim without having to go to trial – and that she would not have to face her dad Thomas in court.
The 39-year-old had claimed articles published in February 2019 involved a misuse of her private information, breached her copyright and breached the Data Protection Act.
And the judge also granted Meghan’s copy claim, saying The Mail On Sunday’s articles “copied a large and important proportion of the work’s original literary content”.
He said: “It was, in short, a personal and private letter.
“The majority of what was published was about the claimant’s own behaviour, her feelings of anguish about her father’s behaviour, as she saw it, and the resulting rift between them.
“These are inherently private and personal matters.”
However, the judge said the issue of whether Meghan was “the sole author” – or whether Jason Knauf, formerly communications secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, was a “co-author” – should be determined at a trial, despite being one “of minor significance in the overall context”.
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Meghan’s data protection claim was not considered at the summary judgment hearing earlier this year and is still outstanding.
Releasing a statement last month, the duchess said: “For today, with this comprehensive win on both privacy and copyright, we have all won.”
A spokesperson for ANL said they were “very surprised” by the ruling and would “decide in due course whether to lodge an appeal”.
