Duchess delays privacy trial until next autumn

Postponement granted despite father’s complaints as newspaper is told it can use biography in defence

The Duchess of Sussex has succeeded in delaying her privacy battle against the Mail on Sunday until next autumn, on “confidential grounds”. She is suing the newspaper for publishing extracts from a letter sent to her father in 2018, claiming breach of copyright and privacy. The ruling in the High Court disappointed Thomas Markle, who said he might be dead by time it came to trial. However, the Duchess lost an appeal against allowing the newspaper to use a biographical book as evidence.

THE Duchess of Sussex’s privacy battle against the Mail on Sunday has been delayed until next autumn despite her father arguing that he “could be dead tomorrow”.

She is suing the newspaper’s owner for publishing extracts from a “private and confidential” letter she sent her father in 2018, claiming it was a breach of her privacy and copyright.

Thomas Markle was expected to give evidence in the trial, scheduled for January, but yesterday a High Court judge granted an application by the Duchess’s lawyers to adjourn the hearing until “much later next year”. Mr Justice Warby said that the “primary basis” for the delay was sought on “a confidential ground”.

A spokesman for the Duchess, 39, refused to be drawn on the reasons for her application to postpone.

Her request was not opposed by the Mail On Sunday although it had asked the judge to consider Mr Markle’s situation, saying he was “elderly and sick” and still wanted to give evidence at the trial.

In a witness statement lodged before the court, Mr Markle, 76, who suffers from a heart condition, shortness of breath and is pre- diabetic, pleaded for the trial to go ahead “as quickly as possible”.

He stated: “None of my male relatives have ever lived beyond 80 years of age. I am a realist and I could die tomorrow. The sooner this case takes place the better. I am clinically obese and I have gained more weight during the past few months because I have been unable to leave my house to take any exercise.

“I don’t know what the position will be l i ke in several months’ time.

“This case is causing me anxiety and I want to get it over with as quickly as possible”. Lawyers f or the Duchess also applied for permission to appeal a gainst a previous r ul i ng t hat allowed the Mail on Sunday to include the tell-all biography Finding Freedom in its defence.

Francesca Kaye, Master of the Chancery Division, ruled last month that the 350-page book could be included as evidence after the newspaper successfully argued it was proof that the Duchess had permitted details of her life to be shared with the authors.

Attempting to overturn the decision, Jane Phillips, for the Duchess, argued: “The new case ought not to have been allowed.

“It was speculative, it was unsubstantiated by evidence and it was inherently implausible and, we say most importantly, it was bad in law.”

She added that the new case was “not only a stab in the dark, but it was a stab in the dark in the wrong room”.

But Mr Justice Warby denied the request to appeal, meaning that the book on the Sussexes’ departure from the Royal family will form part of the newspaper’s defence when the trial resumes next year. Handing down his decision on delaying the trial until next autumn, Mr Justice Warby told the court: “The right decision in all the circumstances is to grant the application to adjourn.

“That means that the trial date of January 11 2021 will be vacated and the trial will be refixed for a new date in the autumn.”

He added: “I’m confident that we’ll be able to find a time in the autumn in October or November in which the trial can be conducted.”

The next hearing in the ongoing legal case will be in January when the Duchess’s legal team will argue for a summary judgment, which can be brought when one party believes it has an overwhelmingly strong case.

The Duchess’s legal team has said it does not believe that the Mail on Sunday’s case has a chance of succeeding and there is no “compelling reason” for trial.

‘This case is causing me anxiety and I want to get it over as quickly as possible’