Even though Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are moving on with their lives, they still take issue with the vicious behavior of the British media.
But their lawsuit against a tabloid that invaded Meghan’s privacy may expose her to further humiliation — forcing her to hand over months of texts, emails, and more.
As you know, Meghan Markle is suing ANL (Associated Newspapers Ltd), the publishers of both the Mail On Sunday and the MailOnline.
This is the publisher that used portions of a letter that she sent to her father in articles during 2019.
ANL’s arguement is that the letter cannot be considered private.
ANL’s argument hinges upon the letter’s mere existence being referenced in a People article, in which a friend of Meghan’s spoke anonymously in Meghan’s defense.
Meghan’s legal response has been that she did not know that these friends were planning to give the interview until it was published, so by no means was the letter becoming public knowledge her doing.
On Monday, September 21, ANL’s attorneys asked to alter their defense and are changing their tactics.
ANL’s brand new legal strategy is to accuse Meghan of having “cooperated with the authors of the recently published book, Finding Freedom.”
The new argument asserts that Meghan sought “to put out their version of certain events.”
To that end, ANL’s legal team is demanding to see all of Meghan’s emails, photos, FaceTime logs, and WhatsApp messages following the article’s publication.
That means handing over more than six months of text histories, call logs, emails, and WhatsApp messages.
ANL’s attorneys insist that they are making this invasive demand in order to “shed light upon the claimant’s attitude to the latter and her privacy.”
Judge Francesca Kaye has ruled that all relative messages from within this time frame — six months after 10 February, 2019 — should be handed over.
Royal reporters Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, who wrote Finding Freedom and published the book just over a month ago, have weighed in.
The two have confirmed that neither Meghan nor Harry cooperated with the writing of the book.
They did acknowledge that they had spoken, on occassion, with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
ANL insists that the letter that Meghan had penned to her terrible father, Thomas Markle, was crafted “with a view to it being read by third parties and/or disclosed to the public.”
“Or,” ANL’s attorneys argue, “knowing that this was very likely.” That is … quite an insidious claim, and we’ll discuss the underlying problems to that in a moment.
ANL’s team alleges that Meghan deliberately used her friends as “effectively PR agents” in a bid to influence the media and public opinion.
Simple factual errors in Finding Freedom support the case that Meghan and Harry were not involved.
At one point, the book claims that Harry texted his father after Archie’s birth.
In reality, Prince Charles does not have a mobile phone — which is a great reminder that many members of the royal family are effectively living on a different planet.
Monday’s hearing also made it clear that the total cost of this court case is around 3 million euros — about $3.5 million in USD.
About 1.8 million euros are being spent by Meghan, and 1.2 million by the defendant. For Meghan and Harry, this is about making those vicous vultures answer for snooping into their private lives.
The full trial has now been scheduled for 11 January, where Meghan is expected to present evidence via video link rather than in person.
