Duchess Meghan letter: UK tabloid starts appeal against privacy ruling

LONDON: A British tabloid began an appeal on Tuesday against a high court judge's ruling in favour of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, in her privacy and copyright action over the publication of a letter she had written to her estranged father.

Meghan, 40, sued Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Mail on Sunday, for printing parts of the letter she wrote to Thomas Markle in August 2018 three months after her marriage to Queen Elizabeth's grandson Prince Harry.

Earlier this year, Judge Mark Warby ruled in her favour without a trial, and said the paper should print a front page apology and pay her legal bills.

On Tuesday, the paper launched a three-day appeal against his decision, saying the judge should not have treated the letter as an "intimate communication" between Meghan and her father, and had reached wrong conclusions on other issues.

"The letter was crafted specifically with the possibility of public consumption in mind, because the claimant appreciated Mr Markle might disclose it to the media," Andrew Caldecott, the Mail's lawyer, told three of England's most senior judges on the Court of Appeal.

Meghan wrote the five-page letter to Markle following a collapse in their relationship in the run-up to her wedding, which her father missed due to ill health and after he admitted posing for paparazzi pictures.