Duchess of Sussex loses latest legal skirmish over privacy
The Duchess of Sussex will have Finding Freedom used against her when the privacy battle she is waging against the Mail on Sunday reaches trial.
A judge agreed on Tuesday that the newspaper could rely on the recent biography of the Sussexes in its defence as the Duchess lost the latest skirmish in her High Court case.
She is suing Associated Newspapers (ANL), the owner of the Mail on Sunday, over its publication of a “private and confidential” letter sent to her estranged father.
Lawyers acting on behalf of the newspaper sought permission to change its defence after the biography was released - claiming the Duchess had breached her own privacy.
ANL said it wished to argue she had "co-operated with the authors of the recently published book Finding Freedom to put out their version of certain events".
The suggestion was strongly refuted by the Duchess's lawyers, who denied she had “collaborated” with the authors and argued the references to the letter in the book were simply extracts from the Mail on Sunday’s own stories.
One of the authors, Omid Scobie, provided a written witness statement to the court saying the Duchess had not been involved with the book.
Ruling on the application on Tuesday, Judge Francesca Kaye said she did not wish to get drawn into a “mini trial” over the issue and allowed the amendment to be made.
She said the changes to the argument did not raise “new defences", adding that the Duchess “knows the case case she has to meet” and “there is no suggestion that she is in fact unable to do so”.
Neither the arguments put forward by the Duchess's barrister, Justin Rushbrooke QC, or the statement from Mr Scobie delivered a “knockout blow” against the amendments and they would be issues for the trial judge to determine, she said.
She added of Mr Scobie’s statement: “It may be what it does not say, rather than what it does say, that might prove to be significant at trial.”
It emerged in court that the latest legal tussle had cost the Duchess nearly £180,000 - £139,000 for her own representation and £39,000 to cover the newspaper’s costs after losing the ruling.
Master Kaye also indicated impatience with the “leisurely” pace at which the legal battle was unfolding, saying she did not wish for the “comparatively modestly valued, relatively straightforward case to take up yet more court time” when it came to trial in January.
In a statement released after the ruling, a spokesman for Schillings, the law firm representing the Duchess, said: “The Mail has been allowed to prolong this action and try contending its amended defence at trial, where we have no doubt it will fail.
“This defence has no merit and is in fact false.”
The Duchess is suing ANL over five articles - two in the Mail on Sunday and three on MailOnline, which were published in February 2019.
She claims the February 2019 publication of parts of the handwritten letter, sent to Thomas Markle, 76, in August 2018, was a misuse of her private information and breached the Data Protection Act.
