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Reuters
The Mail on Sunday may use a recent biography of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in its defense, in a High Court privacy claim over the publication of a letter to Meghan’s estranged father.
The document said that Meghan gave information to the authors of Finding Freedom to present her own version of events.
But Meghan’s lawyers said the allegations that they “collaborated” with the perpetrators were a “conspiracy theory.”
The judge said the publisher can modify his defense to be based on the biography.
Judge Francesca Kaye denied the Duchess’ permission to appeal the ruling, but her lawyers can still take the case to the Court of Appeal.
The Duchess is suing for infringement of privacy and copyright after February 2019 articles reproduced parts of a handwritten letter she had sent to Thomas Markle.
Meghan claims the letter was “private and confidential” and “detailed her intimate thoughts and feelings about her father’s health and her relationship with him at the time.”
The Mail editor denies the allegations, arguing that the Duchess had no reasonable expectations of privacy and the early publication of the letter.
In the recent biography Finding Freedom, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand describe a culture of growing tension between the Sussexes and other members of the Royal Family.
The Mail claimed that Meghan gave the authors information about the letter to Mr. Markle “to present her own version of events in a way that is favorable to her.”
But Meghan’s lawyers argued that the references to the letter in the book were simply “excerpts from the letter drawn from the defendant’s own articles.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex issued a statement at the time of the book’s publication in July to say that they had not been interviewed for the book “and did not contribute” to it.
The couple is now based in California, and they retired as royalty in late March.
The Superior Court case is scheduled to begin in January of next year.
