Sussexes freeze out paparazzi with win
LONDON • The Duke and Duchess of Sussex can no longer be photographed by the paparazzi agency that went on a “reconnaissance inspection” of their Vancouver home, the High Court in London heard Friday.
A lawyer representing the couple announced they had settled a lawsuit against Splash News and Picture Agency over pictures it had published of a “private family outing” to a Vancouver park in January. A statement read to the judge said the photos of Meghan and her son, Archie Mountbatten-windsor, were in breach of their privacy and data protection rights.
The “long lens” photographs showed the Duchess walking their two dogs while carrying Archie in a sling in Horth Hill Regional Park on Vancouver Island.
The news agency was sued by the Duchess in her own right and by her husband, Prince Harry, on behalf of Archie. The Duchess is also suing the publisher of The Mail On Sunday and Mailonline over publication of a letter she wrote to her father.
Friday, Jenny Afia, representing the couple, said they had sued the agency for “misuse of private information and unlawful processing of personal data.” She told a virtual hearing: “The Duke and Duchess's case is that, when the photographs were taken, the Duchess and her son were on a private family outing in a remote rural setting and that there was no public interest in the photographs.”
A photographer from the agency had made a “full reconnaissance inspection” of the Duke and Duchess's home the day before the photographs were taken, she told the court. He walked around the perimeter “looking to identify entry and exit points and putting his camera over the fence to take photographs,” the court heard. Afia said that on July 1, after the claim was issued and served, Splash UK was placed into bankruptcy protection, or administration.
She continued: “The administrators of Splash UK have undertaken that, should the entity come out of administration, Splash UK will not take any photographs of the Duke and Duchess and their son in the future.”
A spokesman for the administrators said after the hearing: “As long as it is legal to do so, and that the privacy rights of children are protected, Splash will, of course, continue to take photographs of public figures in public.”