- The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, has hit out at a London tabloid newspaper after a judge ruled a private letter she wrote to her father should not have been published.
- The Mail on Sunday, the highest circulation newspaper in the United Kingdom published excerpts of a handwritten letter written by the Duchess to her father Thomas Markle in 2018.
- A defamation suit followed which has now led to the judge in the case handing down a summary judgement in favour of the Duchess.
LONDON, UK – The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, has hit out at a London tabloid newspaper after a judge ruled a private letter she wrote to her father should not have been published.
The Mail on Sunday, the highest circulation newspaper in the United Kingdom published excerpts of a handwritten letter written by the Duchess to her father Thomas Markle in 2018.
A defamation suit followed which has now led to the judge in the case handing down a summary judgement in favour of the Duchess.
Justice Mark Warby ruled “the disclosures were manifestly excessive and hence unlawful.” The judge added: there would be “no prospect that a different judgment would be reached after a trial.”
“She enjoyed a reasonable expectation that the contents would remain private and not be published to the world at large by a national newspaper; the defendant’s conduct in publishing the contents of the letter was a misuse of her private information,” Judge Warby wrote in the summary judgement.
(Photo Thomas Markle, the Duchess’s father. Credit: Channel 5).
“After two long years of pursuing litigation, I am grateful to the courts for holding Associated Newspapers and The Mail on Sunday to account for their illegal and dehumanizing practices,” Ms. Markle said Thursday.
“These tactics (and those of their sister publications MailOnline and the Daily Mail) are not new; in fact, they’ve been going on for far too long without consequence.”
“For these outlets, it’s a game. For me and so many others, it’s real life, real relationships, and very real sadness. The damage they have done and continue to do runs deep,” the Duchess said.
“We all lose when misinformation sells more than truth, when moral exploitation sells more than decency, and when companies create their business model to profit from people’s pain. But for today, with this comprehensive win on both privacy and copyright, we have all won.”
