Meghan loses opener

THE Duchess of Sussex has had a setback in her legal action against The Mail on Sunday after the newspaper was successful in its effort to have part of her privacy case struck out.

The duchess is suing Associated Newspapers, publishers of The Mail on Sunday, over its publication of a letter from her to her estranged father.

Mr Justice Warby ruled against the duchess at the High Court on Friday (local time), after an application made at a hearing last week by Associated Newspapers. However, the judge said that the parts of the duchess’s case that were dismissed could be revived if they were put on a proper legal basis.

Mark Stephens, a media lawyer, said the ruling showed that the duchess had been ‘‘wrongheaded and ill-advised’’ to try to broaden her claim against the newspaper. ‘‘This is a straightforward privacy and copyright case and she should have left it at that,’’ he said.

The action involves five articles, two in The Mail on Sunday and three on MailOnline. They were published in February last year and reproduced parts of a handwritten letter she sent to Thomas Markle, now 75, in August 2018.

Mr Justice Warby said some of the allegations should not form part of the duchess’s case at this stage because they were ‘‘irrelevant’’ to her claim for misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of the Data Protection Act.

No date has been set for any further hearing in the case.