Former actress Meghan Markle won her case on Thursday, December 2, against the British tabloid Mail on Sunday, condemned for the publication of a letter she had written to her father, a victory likely to reshape a tabloid press cruel and deceptive, according to Prince Harry’s wife.
Saying disappointed by the decision of the Court of Appeal which rejected his appeal against his conviction for invasion of privacy, the editor of Mail on Sunday, the Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) group, has announced that it is considering taking the matter to the Supreme Court.
The mass-circulation newspaper was challenging a February court ruling that the publication of Meghan’s letter to her father was “Manifestly excessive and therefore illegal”. He particularly regretted that the decision had been taken at first instance without going through a due process.
Sentenced to pay 530,000 euros to Meghan Markle
“The Court of Appeal upholds the judge’s decision that the Duchess could reasonably expect respect for her privacy”said Judge Geoffrey Vos, pointing out that the contents of the letter were “Personal, private and did not present a legitimate interest in the public interest”.
“What matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that pushes people to be cruel and takes advantage of the lies and the pain they create.”, rejoiced Mme Markle after the court of appeal decision. Denouncing on multiple occasions the pressure of the media on his couple, Harry, 37, has also made it the main reason for his withdrawal from the royal family and his exile in California with his wife, where they live with their two children.
In this missive published in 2018, shortly after her marriage to Prince Harry, the Duchess of Sussex asked her father, Thomas Markle, 77, to stop talking and lying in the media about their broken relationship. the Mail on Sunday had been condemned to report in “one” of his legal defeat, and his publisher to pay 450,000 pounds (530,000 euros) to Mr.me Markle for his legal costs. But the tabloid had argued in its appeal, reviewed in November, that she wrote the letter knowing it could be disclosed.
The letter written with the possibility “that it might leak”
Meghan Markle denounced the practices “Without rules” of this publication, which she said made “A simple and extremely convoluted business, in order to generate even more titles and sell more newspapers – a model that rewards chaos rather than truth ”.
In order to support his claims, the Mail on Sunday highlighted during the appeal hearings the testimony of Jason Knauf, the couple’s former communications secretary, who said that the draft letter had been written with in mind “That she could flee”. In a written testimony, Meghan had refuted this claim, believing it to be only a “Possibility”.
Bringing water to the tabloid mill, which wanted to demonstrate that it regularly sought to influence public opinion, Mr. Knauf had also said to have provided on behalf of Meghan and Harry private information to the authors of the unofficial biography of the royal couple, Finding Freedom (Harry and Meghan, free, in its French translation). Mme Markle finally recognized it and apologized for having misled justice by not having specified it in the first instance, a backpedal which earned him the mockery of the tabloids.
She argued, however, that the information shared with the authors was “Far from very detailed personal information” published by the Mail on Sunday. But the ANL spokesperson stressed that“No evidence has been subjected to cross-examination, as it should be, especially when the evidence provided by Mr Knauf raises questions as to the credibility of the Duchess”.
