The Duchess of Sussex won a privacy lawsuit she filed against the publisher of the Mail on Sunday. Meghan Markle sued after they published parts of a letter she wrote to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, following her wedding to Prince Harry.
Judge Mark Warby wrote that Meghan “had a reasonable expectation that the contents of the letter would remain private,” and the articles had “interfered with that reasonable expectation.”
“Taken as a whole the disclosures were manifestly excessive and hence unlawful,” he wrote. “There is no prospect that a different judgment would be reached after a trial.”
The battle is won, but the war isn’t over. The issues of copyright will have to settled at trial.
Meghan said in a statement after the ruling that she was “grateful to the courts for holding Associated Newspapers and The Mail on Sunday to account for their illegal and dehumanizing practices.”
“For these outlets, it’s a game,” she added. “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.”
A spokesperson for the Associated Newspapers said they were “disappointed at being denied the chance to have all the evidence heard and tested in open court at a full trial.”
The spokesperson added: “We are carefully considering the judgment's contents and will decide in due course whether to lodge an appeal.”
