Yahoo Finance Meghan's letter 'signalled end of our relationship', Thomas Markle tells court
Watch: Thomas Markle believes Meghan wanted her letter to him published, court hears
A private letter written by the Duchess of Sussex to her father “actually signalled the end of our relationship, not a reconciliation”, Thomas Markle has told the high court as he accused his daughter of showing “no concern” for his health as she allegedly “shut [him] out”.
The letter, extracts of which were published by the Mail on Sunday, is at the centre of the court case pitting Meghan against her estranged father.
In a witness statement submitted on behalf of the publisher Associated Newspapers (ANL), Markle, 76, said he felt compelled to release extracts of the 2018 letter to correct “lies” written about him when Meghan’s friends spoke anonymously to the US magazine People.
He said: “I believe (and still believe) that Meghan wanted her account of the letter to be published.”
He chose the extracts he released to the Mail on Sunday, and did not want the whole letter published “because I thought the letter as a whole made Meg look terrible”, his statement said.
He had been “shocked” when he read the People article, saying it had “vilified me by making out that I was dishonest, exploitative, publicity-seeking, uncaring and cold-hearted, leaving a loyal and dutiful daughter devastated”. “I had to defend myself against that attack,” the statement added.
In his statement, Markle said the suggestion in the People article that Meghan had reached out to him “saying that she loved me and that she wanted to repair our relationship” had been “false”.
“The letter was not an attempt at a reconciliation. It was a criticism of me. The letter didn’t say she loved me. It did not even ask how I was. It showed no concern about the fact I had suffered a heart attack and asked no questions about my health. It actually signalled the end of our relationship, not a reconciliation,” his statement said.
“It was wrong for People magazine to say I had lied about Meg shutting me out – she had shut me out, as the letter from her showed.”
Markle’s witness statement was released as the duchess sought to have the judge rule in her favour in a summary judgment without the need for a trial in her privacy action against ANL, the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online, which reproduced parts of the letter over five articles in February 2019.
Justin Rushbrooke QC, for the duchess, told Mr Justice Warby that ANL’s case had no prospect of success and that publication of the extracts had been a “triple-barrelled invasion of her privacy rights”. The letter was “a heartfelt plea from an anguished daughter to her father”, he added. Rushbrooke said ANL’s defence was “smoke and mirrors” and did not “stand up to scrutiny”.
“It is as good an example as one could find of a letter that any person of ordinary sensibilities would not want to be disclosed to third parties, let alone in a mass media publication, in a sensational context and to serve the commercial purposes of the newspaper,” he added.
He said the defence’s case that Thomas Markle had been left “with no choice but to go public” about the letter after its existence was revealed to US People was “cynical and unattractive”.
Watch: Publication of Meghan’s letter ‘serious invasion’ of privacy, court told
In his statement, Markle said he neither asked for nor received payment for the Mail on Sunday article. He felt that if the public did not see the letter “and read what it said in its own words, I did not think anyone would believe me”.
The duchess is seeking damages for alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of the Data Protection Act over the articles. Any trial has been postponed until the autumn after an application by Meghan, which was granted for reasons that have not been made public.
Rushbrooke said the case raised an “important point of principle”, and the “disturbing question: Who has the right of control over the contents of a private letter? Is it the writer of the letter, or the editor of the Mail on Sunday,” he said.
“There can only be one answer to that question, and it’s the same whether the writer is a duchess or any other citizen. And the answer is it is not the editor of the Mail on Sunday,” he said.
Antony White QC, representing ANL, said in written submissions that the case was “wholly unsuitable for summary judgment”.
He told the judge Meghan wrote the letter in order “to defend her against charges of being an uncaring or unloving daughter” and she must have appreciated “that her father might choose to disclose it”.
The defence has argued that the duchess made personal information public by co-operating with authors of the biography Finding Freedom, a claim she denies. It also argued that her denial she knew her friends had been talking anonymously to People magazine “does not seem plausible”.
The duchess’s case had “constantly shifted” and she had given a “confusing and tortuous account of the genesis of the letter”, White said in written submissions. Much of the confusion which “bedevils” her case arose because she was “compelled to put forward explanations in response to facts provided by ANL”, he said.
The hearing is due to last two days.
