The Duchess of Sussex asked a High Court judge to rule in her favour in her privacy claim against a newspaper yesterday.
Lawyers for Meghan, 39, said her legal action should be decided by High Court judge Mr Justice Warby, without proceeding to full trial.
The duchess is suing the publisher of The Mail on Sunday, the sister paper of the Daily Mail, after it published extracts from a letter she wrote to her father after her marriage to Prince Harry.
Her lawyers argued that the letter was ‘intrinsically private, personal and sensitive’ and was never intended to be made public.
Justin Rushbrooke QC, for the duchess, said the publication of extracts from the letter was a ‘triple-barrelled’ assault on the duchess’s ‘private life, her family life and her correspondence’.
He said the letter had outlined the duchess’s ‘constant love’ for her father Thomas Markle, 76, and her fears for his health.
The Duchess of Sussex asked a High Court judge to rule in her favour in her privacy claim against a newspaper yesterday
The letter, written in August 2018, is now at the centre of the high-stakes privacy case at the High Court in London.
Lawyers for The Mail on Sunday deny breaches of privacy, copyright and data protection and have asked that the case continue to trial later this year.
They have argued the duchess expected the letter to become public, and effectively breached her own privacy by allowing her friends to speak to a US magazine on her behalf.
Mr Rushbrooke said both Meghan and Harry had attempted to guard their privacy following fears about Mr Markle speaking to journalists.
They were in regular contact with Mr Markle in the run-up to their 2018 wedding, the lawyers said, and had been worried about him.
Meghan offered to help protect her father against intrusive paparazzi photographers, the court heard.
Mr Rushbrooke said she and Harry had pleaded with Mr Markle for the truth about supposed paparazzi photos which showed him shopping for a wedding suit.
He said: ‘They were ready to go in to bat with a legal complaint to stop the story being run if it was untrue.
‘And he was told that if they tried to do that and it fails, because it is true, then that will risk the privacy of any children of their thereafter. In other words, you only get one shot at this.’
Mr Markle later admitted he had posed for the photographs and said he would not walk Meghan down the aisle.
He did not attend the wedding and he has not seen her since then. He has previously said the estrangement meant he had never met his grandson Archie, who will be two in May.
Meghan’s letter to her father was written after her wedding, and lawyers for The Mail on Sunday said it was vital that she should face questions over alleged ‘inconsistencies’ in her account of how she came to write it.
The duchess has always insisted she wrote the ‘deeply painful’ letter herself.
She has admitted she sought advice from two senior members of the Royal Family about how to stop her father from talking to the Press.
Justin Rushbrooke QC said the letter had outlined the duchess’s ‘constant love’ for her father Thomas Markle, 76, and her fears for his health
She said she then informed Jason Knauf, Kensington Palace’s director of communications, about her letter and showed him a draft.
Lawyers for the duchess said he gave feedback but no ‘actual wording’ on the personal letter.
But lawyers for The Mail on Sunday argue she consulted Mr Knauf because she expected the letter to become public.
They are seeking further information from him and three other senior royal aides over the letter.
The quartet – dubbed ‘the Palace Four’ – were named in legal documents seen by the court as Mr Knauf, Samantha Cohen, Christian Jones and Sara Latham.
At the time the letter was written, shortly after Meghan’s marriage to Prince Harry, Ms Cohen was their private secretary and the other three all worked in the Kensington Palace communications office.
Lawyers for the duchess said a legal firm representing the quartet, Addleshaw Goddard, had confirmed that ‘one or more of our clients would be in a position to shed some light on the following issues: the creation of the letter and the electronic draft.’
All four said they were willing to give evidence but did not wish to ‘take sides’ and were ‘strictly neutral’, the court heard.
A new witness statement from The Mail on Sunday editor Ted Verity claimed Mr Knauf worked on drafts of the letter with the duchess.
He said a confidential source had told him that Sara Latham had helped the authors of a controversial biography of Meghan and Harry, Finding Freedom.
Mr Verity said Ms Latham, who was communications secretary to the Sussexes, had effectively been ‘fact-checking’ for the authors.
Meghan has denied claims that she cooperated with Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand on the book, 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.
Antony White QC, for The Mail on Sunday, said the paper should be able to question the duchess about ‘inconsistencies’ in her case.
It would only be able to do so if the privacy case went to full trial, he said.
The alleged inconsistencies included her account of whether she had discussed her letter with her friends, and with Kensington Palace staff.
Mr White said: ‘There are now on the record a number of inconsistent statements made by her that she will need to explain.’
He went on: ‘Were the court to find that she had made untruthful or misleading statements in the course of these proceedings, that matter is relevant to the question of liability and particularly the balancing of rights that the court must conduct.’
Mr White said Mr Markle had a right to speak about his relationship with his daughter and to defend his own reputation, and that the case also challenged the newspaper’s freedom of expression.
He said there were ‘inconsistencies’ in the duchess’ account of events which she needed to explain at full trial, including the circumstances in which the letter was written.
The hearing at the High Court in London continues.