(London) British justice began on Tuesday to examine the appeal made by the tabloid Mail on Sunday, who had been convicted of invading the privacy of Prince Harry’s wife, Meghan Markle, over the publication of a letter written to her father.
The editor of Mail on Sunday, the Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) group is challenging before the Royal Courts of Justice in London a court ruling according to which the publication of Meghan’s letter was “manifestly excessive and therefore illegal”.
At the start of the hearing, the publisher argued that the missive had been written knowing that it could be made public.
“We interpreted the judgment as implicitly accepting that the letter was intended as an intimate communication intended only for the eyes of his father,” said attorney for the publisher, Andrew Caldecott, who argued that point was “ false “.
“The letter was designed specifically with the possibility of public use in mind, as the plaintiff recognized that Mr. Markle may release it to the media,” he said.
Meghan Markle, a 40-year-old American actress, won her privacy lawsuit in February against the Mail on Sunday. She blamed this mass-circulation newspaper for publishing a letter written in 2018, in which she asked her father Thomas Markle, 77, to stop pouring out and lying in the media about their broken relationship.
Prince Harry, 37, sixth in the order of succession to the British crown, has repeatedly denounced media pressure on his couple and made it the main reason for his withdrawal from the royal family, effective since April 2020.
Consideration of the appeal is scheduled to last until Thursday.