Royal aides ‘ready to give evidence’ in Meghan case
FOUR senior royal aides are willing to assist the High Court by giving evidence in a privacy and copyright case brought by the Duchess of Sussex, they said yesterday.
The ‘Palace Four’ said they did not welcome their potential involvement in the litigation – in which they are all strictly neutral – but, if appropriate, they could ‘shed light’ on the drafting of the letter to her father at the centre of the case.
Lawyers for the quartet, who all used to work for the duchess at Kensington Palace, said they would also have evidence about whether or not she directly or indirectly provided private information to the authors of a controversial book about her and Prince Harry.
Meghan, 39, is suing The Mail on Sunday, the sister paper of the Daily Mail, over claims it breached her privacy and copyright when it published extracts from a letter she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle. The newspaper denies her claim and its lawyers have argued the duchess ‘expected or intended’ her letter to become public, and effectively breached her own privacy by allowing her friends to brief journalists on her behalf.
Lawyers for The Mail on Sunday said information from her former aides at Kensington Palace needed to be examined at a full High Court trial, expected later this year.
They want to question the quartet – dubbed ‘the Palace Four’ in legal documents – over claims that Meghan wrote the letter as part of a ‘media strategy’ and expected it would be made public.
The newspaper’s lawyers say the duchess wrote the letter in August 2018, to ‘defend her against charges of being an uncaring or unloving daughter’. They want to speak to Jason Knauf, the Palace’s director of communications, over claims he worked on draft versions of the letter. They also want to speak to other Palace staff about the letter, and about claims that Meghan fed information to the authors of Finding Freedom, a biography of the Sussexes.
The newspaper’s editor Ted Verity alleges a confidential source told him Sara Latham, communications secretary to the Sussexes, was involved in ‘fact-checking’ for the authors. The duchess has denied claims that she co-operated with journalists Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, or that she or her husband met or spoke with them. But she has admitted authorising a friend to speak to them in order to avoid being misrepresented.
Lawyers for the four said they were willing to give infortion mation in the case ‘if appropriate’. They were named in legal documents as Mr Knauf, Miss Latham, Samantha Cohen and Christian Jones. A legal letter written on behalf of them said one or more had information about the creaof Meghan’s letter, and ‘whether or not [she] anticipated that the letter might come into the public domain’.
Lawyers for The Mail on Sunday said the legal letter was a ‘significant development’. They asked the High Court to dismiss an application from the duchess for a judge to rule in her favour without the need for a trial.
They said they could not question the aides – or the duchess – unless the case went to trial. High Court judge Mr Justice Warby is expected to make a decision next month on whether the case should go to trial.
‘Significant development’