Meghan Markle's Plea to Her Father for "Peace" Revealed as Legal Battle Continues

Photo credit: Chris Jackson - Getty Images
Photo credit: Chris Jackson - Getty Images
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From Town & Country

The Duchess of Sussex’s legal battle with the publishers of the Mail on Sunday continued today with a hearing at the High Court to determine whether or not the case goes to trial. Meghan's lawyers have appealed for a summary judgement and, if successful, the case will end there. However, lawyers for Associated Newspapers Ltd have argued that it is “wholly unsuitable for summary judgement” and asked the judge to reject Meghan’s application.

The remote hearing before Mr. Justice Warby began at 10:30 a.m. in the UK with Meghan’s team laying out their application, and sharing some of the Duchess's communications with her father in the run-up to the 2018 royal wedding. During the hearing, a previously unpublished part of the letter that she sent to her father was read out: “I ask for nothing other than peace and I wish the same for you.” The first line of the last paragraph of the letter was also revealed in court documents filed by the Duchess’s lawyers: “If you love me, as you tell the press you do, please stop. Please allow us to live our lives in peace…”

Photo credit: JONATHAN BRADY - Getty Images
Photo credit: JONATHAN BRADY - Getty Images

Meghan’s lawyer Justin Rushbrooke QC described the publication of the letter as a “triple-barrelled invasion of her privacy rights” relating to correspondence, her private life, and her family life. In documents submitted to the court, Meghan’s lawyers described the letter as “a heartfelt plea from an anguished daughter to her father” adding: “It is as good an example as one could find of a letter that any person of ordinary sensibilities would not want to be disclosed to third parties, let alone in a mass media publication, in a sensational context and to serve the commercial purposes of the newspaper.” Mr. Rushbrooke QC outlined during the proceedings that the purpose of the letter was to get Thomas Markle to stop talking to the press.

In court filings, Meghan's legal team described the contents and character of the letter as "intrinsically private, personal and sensitive," continuing:

"It concerned the Claimant’s relationship with her father; her constant love for and desire to protect him; the financial support she had given him (contrary to his public claim that she had not); her concerns over the state of his health; the recent breakdown of that relationship; her feelings about that breakdown and the very painful impact of his conduct upon her, in particular his dealings with the press; and her sense of betrayal over his denial of working with the paparazzi."

The Duchess is suing Associated Newspapers Ltd for the alleged breach of privacy, infringement of copyright, and breach of the Data Protection Act 2018 after they published parts of the letter she wrote to her father. A trial has currently been postponed until fall on confidential grounds, but won’t happen at all if the summary judgement is granted.

In documents submitted to the court, Associated Newspapers Ltd have claimed that there is “uncertainty” over the nature and scope of the copyright, saying: “That requires investigation at trial with disclosure and evidence.” The newspaper group has claimed that others, including former royal communications secretary Jason Knauf contributed to an electronic draft of the letter. The publisher has also said in documents that it would seek disclosure from palace officials for trial and has identified four former members of palace staff who it believes may have information in relation to the case. Described as the “Palace four,” they are: former communications secretary Jason Knauf, former Private Secretary Samantha Cohen, former deputy communications secretary Christian Jones and former communications secretary Sara Latham.

Sussex biography Finding Freedom also featured heavily in the proceedings, with Meghan’s team claiming in court documents that Associated has “deliberately misdescribed passages in the Book in order to bolster its case that the Claimant was the source for them.” Meghan had previously admitted allowing the the book’s authors to be informed of the existence of a letter to her father, but her lawyer today pointed to a letter written by co-author Omid Scobie saying that he was not provided with a copy of the letter, the text of the letter, or any extracts from the text of the letter. The hearing is expected to continue today and tomorrow ahead of the judge’s verdict on the summary judgement.

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