Four former senior aides of the Duchess of Sussex are prepared to give evidence about whether she intended a letter she sent to her father to become public, London’s High Court has been told.
Meghan, 39, the wife of Queen Elizabeth’s grandson, Prince Harry, is suing publisher Associated Newspapers after its Mail on Sunday tabloid printed extracts of the handwritten letter she sent to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, in August 2018.
She has asked a judge to rule in her favour without the need for a potentially embarrassing trial, with her lawyers telling the court on Tuesday that publishing the “intrinsically private, personal and sensitive letter” was a breach of her privacy, to which there was no viable defence.
The paper argues that the duchess intended the letter’s contents to become public and it was part of a media strategy, pointing out that she admitted, in court papers, to discussing it with her communications secretary, Jason Knauf.
Why was the Kensington Palace communications team involved at all in wording the letter?
— Lawyer Antony White
Antony White, the paper’s lawyer, on Wednesday told a second day of remote hearings on the duchess’s request for a summary judgment in the case that any involvement of royal aides in drafting the letter “cries out for investigation”.
“Why was the Kensington Palace communications team involved at all in wording the letter?” he asked.
A lawyer representing four senior former aides, including Knauf, said they would be prepared to give evidence at a trial and one or more “would be in a position to shed some light” on some of the contested issues.
This included the creation of the letter, whether the duchess anticipated it would become public and whether she was directly or indirectly involved in providing private information to authors of a recent biography, their lawyer said in a letter made public on Wednesday.
None “wished to take sides in the dispute”, the letter said, adding: “Our clients are all strictly neutral.”
The trial was due to start last week, but was delayed until late 2021 at Markle’s request last year because of a confidential reason, when her lawyers also said they would seek a summary judgment.
– Reuters
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