Palace staff may be forced to testify in Sussex case
The Duchess of Sussex’s privacy case could see Kensington Palace’s inner workings laid before the courts, as sources say it will not target members of the Royal family but the institution that left her ‘‘undefended’’.
Documents filed this week place the behind-the-scenes mechanisms of the palace at the centre of the Duchess’s claim against
as her legal team say her friends spoke out only to protect her after she felt ‘‘prohibited from defending herself’’.
They raise the prospect that former or current staff could be called as witnesses for the High Court case, along with friends of the Duchess.
The Duchess herself will prepare a witness statement laying bare yet further details of a letter she wrote to her father, the arrangements she made for him to travel to Britain for her wedding and the lengths she went to in attempts to stop the media from speaking to him.
Insiders fear the case will expose previously unknown details of her life in the Royal family.
It will not, a source insisted, target individual members of the Royal family or their relationship with the Sussexes, but the ‘‘institutional processes’’ friends feel ‘‘let her down’’.
The latest revelations, detailed in written answers provided to
legal team by the Duchess’s lawyers, continue the ongoing and very public fallout of the Sussexes’ departure from the UK.
The Duchess is suing
on the grounds of breach of privacy, data protection and copyright, over the publication of parts of a handwritten letter to her father.
The newspaper has argued that the Duchess’s friends first brought the letter to public attention with an anonymous interview given to
magazine, in which it was raised for the first time.
On the question of why the five friends spoke, papers state the Duchess had been distressed by media reports, as well as an alleged Kensington Palace policy of responding ‘‘no comment’’ to allegations about her.
That left her friends ‘‘rightly concerned for her welfare, specifically as she was pregnant, unprotected by the institution, and prohibited from defending herself’’, it said.
Royal commentators yesterday speculated that the latest revelations would leave the family distressed, particularly by claims the Duchess felt unprotected during her pregnancy. But a source said yesterday that the Duchess’s case would not focus on the Royal family itself.
‘‘It was the institutional process and culture, the operational behaviour, that let her down,’’ the source said. ‘‘It is not targeted at individuals in the family at all.
‘‘People are missing the fact that at its heart, this is a case against a newspaper for breaching the privacy of a woman writing to her father. This is not a case about the wider Royal family or their relationships at all.’’
No decision has yet been made on who to call as witnesses, but it is understood Palace staff familiar with its communications policy could be central to the Duchess’s case.
The Duchess’s team has already promised further details about her relationship with her father to come.
‘‘The intention of the letter was to make him stop his actions. It was not an attempt at reconciliation,’’ they noted in one section.’’
Associated Newspapers has wholly denied all claims against it, particularly the suggestion that the letter was edited in any meaningful way.
A date for the court case against The Mail on Sunday has not yet been set but is unlikely to be before next year, with further written exchanges between legal teams still to come. –