Victory for Meghan Markle as British court dismisses newspaper publisher’s appeal against privacy ruling
- The Court of Appeal upheld an earlier ruling that publication of a letter the Duchess of Sussex wrote to her father after marrying Prince Harry was ‘unlawful’
- Duchess of Sussex said ruling a victory ‘for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right’ and hoped it would embolden others
A British court on Thursday dismissed an appeal by a newspaper publisher seeking to overturn an earlier ruling that it breached the privacy of the Duchess of Sussex by publishing portions of a letter she wrote to her estranged father.
The Court of Appeal in London upheld a High Court ruling in February that publication of the letter that the former Meghan Markle wrote to her father Thomas Markle after she married Prince Harry in 2018 was “manifestly excessive and hence unlawful”.
The publisher of The Mail on Sunday and the MailOnline website challenged that decision at the Court of Appeal, which held a hearing last month.
In a statement, Meghan said the ruling was “a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right”.
“While this win is precedent-setting, what matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel, and profits from the lies and pain that they create.”
Associated Newspapers disputed Meghan’s claim that she did not intend the letter to be seen by anyone but her father. They said correspondence between Meghan and her then-communications secretary, Jason Knauf, showed the duchess suspected her father might leak the letter to journalists and wrote it with that in mind.