Meghan Markle has won her privacy case over the publication of a letter to her estranged father Thomas.
The Duchess of Sussex is seeking damages from Associated Newspapers Ltd for alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of the Data Protection Act.
Meghan’s father received the letter in August 2018, months before sections of it were published in the UK Mail on Sunday and on the MailOnline in February, 2019.
Mr Justice Warby granted Meghan “summary judgement” in her claim for misuse of private information in a High Court judgement on Thursday.
The judge said: “The claimant had a reasonable expectation that the contents of the letter would remain private. The Mail articles interfered with that reasonable expectation.”
He added that “the only tenable justification for any such interference was to correct some inaccuracies about the letter”, which was contained in a PEOPLE magazine interview with five of Meghan’s friends.
“The inescapable conclusion is that, save to the very limited extent I have identified, the disclosures made were not a necessary or proportionate means of serving that purpose.”
“For the most part they did not serve that purpose at all. Taken as a whole the disclosures were manifestly excessive and hence unlawful.”
In papers seen by the Press Association, Meghan’s solicitors said the handwritten letter was “obviously private correspondence” which detailed her “deepest and most private thoughts and feelings about her relationship with her father.”
They added: “The claimant intended the detailed contents of the letter to be private, and certainly did not expect them to be published to the world at large by a national newspaper, and without any warning.”
Meghan’s legal team also claimed that the newspaper “chose to deliberately omit or suppress” parts of the letter, which “intentionally distorted or manipulated” its meaning.
The Duchess’ lawyers also said that had the letter been published in full, it would have “undermined the defendant’s intended negative characterisation of the claimant”.
Associated Newspapers defended the letter’s publication by suggesting Meghan put it in the public domain by allegedly telling friends about it – who later spoke to the publication.
However, the Duchess insisted she was unaware that five close friends were planning to speak to PEOPLE magazine about her strained relationship with Thomas, for an article published in February 2019.
The five friends requested anonymity at the time of their interview, in order to protect their private relationships.
