The Duchess of Sussex’s father, Thomas Markle, could give evidence in court on behalf of the Mail on Sunday as it argues there is a “huge and legitimate public interest” in the royal family and its “personal and family relationships”.
Meghan is suing the newspaper and its parent group for publishing a letter she wrote to her father in 2018. She claims misuse of her private information, selective editing of the letter and breach of copyright.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In what BBC royal correspondent Jonny Dymond described as a “very robust” defence, the newspaper argues that that the duchess and other royals “rely on publicity about themselves and their lives to maintain the privileged positions they hold” and that she could not “have a reasonable expectation of privacy that the contents of the letter were private and would remain so”.
Paperwork filed at the high court shows the newspaper will rely on evidence from Thomas Markle, including that he “had a weighty right to tell his version of what had happened between himself and his daughter including the contents of the letter”. The Daily Mail says this morning that it will be a case of “Markle vs. Markle”.
Schillings, the law firm representing Meghan, filed a claim against the paper in October, alleging misuse of private information, infringement of copyright and breach of the Data Protection Act 2018.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––For a weekly round-up of the best articles and columns from the UK and abroad, try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscription today –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––