Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, apologised for misleading a British court in a case related to her privacy case against The Mail. The case is about the extent of her cooperation with the authors of a sympathetic book about her and Prince Harry.
The Court of Appeal, hearing the Associated Newspapers’ appeal seeking to overturn a previous judgment in favour of the Duchess, heard that she had asked an aide to pass on information to the authors of a biography – despite having earlier said she “did not contribute”.
In a witness statement to the court, Meghan said that she accepted that her aide did provide information to the authors of the book with her knowledge. However, she said that the “extent of the information he shared is unknown to me”.
She said: “When I approved the passage… I did not have the benefit of seeing these emails and I apologise to the court for the fact that I had not remembered these exchanges at the time.
“I had absolutely no wish or intention to mislead the defendant or the court.”
Associated Newspapers is trying to overturn a ruling after it published a letter from Meghan to her father.
Earlier this year, Meghan had won her privacy case against the publishing house.
Now, the Associated Newspapers legal team are seeking to overturn the judgment at the Court of Appeal saying that this was simply a private and personal letter. They argued that it was crafted with the “possibility of public consumption” in mind.
Jason Knauf, the couple’s former communications secretary, said the book ‘Finding Freedom’ was “discussed on a routine basis” and “discussed directly with the duchess multiple times in person and over email”.
The publishers’ legal team quoted an exchange of text messages between Markle and Knauf in which Meghan said: “Obviously everything I have drafted is with the understanding that it could be leaked, so I have been meticulous in my word choice.”