Appeal is likely to revisit High Court judge’s ‘excoriating’ verdict

The last case Mark Warby QC presided over in the High Court, before becoming a Lord Justice of the Appeal, was the Duchess of Sussex’s battle against the Mail on Sunday. In an excoriating judgment in May, the former Bristol Grammar School boy, who studied at St John’s College, Oxford, before being called to the bar in 1981, criticised Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) for its handling of the case. Accusing the publisher of refusing to “see the light” before it eventually conceded defeat, the judge, 63, ruled ANL must pay additional costs for dragging out the proceedings. It came after he had ruled in February that the company had no chance of defending Meghan’s privacy claim because disclosing the letter was “manifestly excessive and hence unlawful” as it had conceded that the Duchess was the sole author of the letter after Mr Knauf insisted that he had not helped her to write it. After these summary judgments, the case did not have to go to trial. Mr Warby said ANL’S defence had been “reduced to a speculative hypothesis, founded on hearsay from an unknown source, which lacks corroboration and is contradicted by both the key individuals”. He also hit out at the “torturous” back and forth that took place between lawyers over financial remedies. Yet had he seen Mr Knauf ’s latest witness statement, produced yesterday as part of the appeal hearing, Lord Justice Warby’s conclusion may have been very different. In June, ANL was given the right to challenge the privacy and copyright rulings in recognition of the “exceptional public interest in the issues raised by the case”. The new witness statement makes it more likely the case will go to trial, with Meghan, her father and Prince Harry called to give evidence under oath.