The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Family, News and Events 6: Aug. 2021- Oct. 2022

[UglyAmerican]

Well, he could have spent more time talking about AIDS. Just about anything he might say on that subject would have been better for World AIDS Day than talking about covid, his mother, or anything else.

[winifred]

Breaking news:the Mail on Sunday has lost its appeal against Meghan.

[muriel]

Originally Posted by winifred

Breaking news:the Mail on Sunday has lost its appeal against Meghan.

I wonder if Meghan realises that the revelations during the course of the litigation have probably done more damage to her than any good that may come out of the outcome per se.

[winifred]

Statement from Meghan talking about people having to be brave to stand up to the cruelty of the tabloids. 3 paragraphs apparently.

Judge said M on S would have been entitled to post a very small extract from the letter to correct what Thomas Markle felt were inaccuracies in the People article but not almost 50%.

The copyright case was always going to be found in favour of Meghan as the law is straightforward, but, as Muriel says, it was everything else that Meghan tried to add on which led to the long-drawn-out trial and to some damaging revelations.

[Alison H]

I doubt that the Mail gives two hoots. Newspapers are always being asked to apologise for things. I'm not saying that that's right or wrong, just that it's the way it is.

[Moran]

The Mail won. It was always a given that Meghan would win on this count but the Mail go to drag a royal duchess scrambling for an excuse why she forgot months of exchanges on an important matter. They'll be milking this story for ages.

The Mail knew what it was doing. Yes, they could have posted a tiny part of the letter but then it wouldn't have had the impact it did. (On me, personally, a tiny part wouldn't have left the highly self-serving, unfavourable impression the whole letter did.) They're going to milk this story for ages. And now everyone saw that at best, Meghan's memory can't be trusted. (That's putting it kindly.)

[winifred]

Interestingly - or not! - there's nothing yet in the Mail online (sister publication), a full hour after the news came out.

[A-Bik]

Originally Posted by muriel

I wonder if Meghan realises that the revelations during the course of the litigation have probably done more damage to her than any good that may come out of the outcome per se.

I don't think it's done as much harm as people think.

Meghan has been the tabloid punchbag for so long, that it's almost redundant to declare her unpopularity in Britain and blogs.

Moreover, the Daily Mail is very much a divisive organ and anyone who takes them on will be torn to pieces.

There is a wide section of the public who know this.

They're just not as vocal.

Anyway the judgement in full makes a fascinating read.
https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/h...ant-appellant/

[intothesea]

As for the Mail, that’s the outcome I expected after the first ruling.

Harry’s letter is strange. He spends 75% on COVID to mark World AIDS Day, and it is in a letter to WHO which I think has done a good job stating the fact that the entire world needs vaccines and that other potentially dangerous variants can emerge in unvaccinated corners of the world and spread everywhere.

In my view, it comes across as very patronizing and if I were the recipient, I might be annoyed my name was attached to such accusations. I assume Harry didn’t mean to “accuse” but rather “inform”.

Also think it’s foolish to compare COVID with AIDS, in general. We still don’t have a vaccine for AIDS. He might have fared better discussing the need for continued attention and research on AIDS.

Not impressed.

[yukari]

Originally Posted by winifred

Breaking news:the Mail on Sunday has lost its appeal against Meghan.

As expected.

But then again, IMO MoS didn't really expect to win this appeal to begin with. They push this appeal so they can "present" the text and emails in the court. By presenting it before the court of law, it makes it more legitimate than if they published it directly in their paper. And they hit jackpot because they even managed to make Meghan admitting it.

However, it's Meghan's fault. I mean, what "not being supported by the palace" has anything to do with copyright?

After the last revelation, I can't help to think that perhaps after being in the Suit for so long, she started to think that she could use this case as her "stage" to "pull heartstring". But it's backfire and seems to cost her her (former) staff's loyalty instead.

Well, I guess she's learnt her lesson: no formal complaint/lawsuit against Low/The Times on the bullying allegation. Because that would be a bigger can of worms she can't risk to open if it goes to trial.

I hope she'll also learnt that to make herself look good, she doesn't need to do it by playing victim and attacking people or by making others look bad. That would only gain her more enemies.

[winifred]

https://twitter.com/scobie?lang=en-gb

Meghan's statement available on Scobie's twitter.

https://twitter.com/chrisshipitv

And court judgement from Chris Ship.

[Alison H]

Originally Posted by intothesea

Harry’s letter is strange. He spends 75% on COVID to mark World AIDS Day, and it is in a letter to WHO which I think has done a good job stating the fact that the entire world needs vaccines and that other potentially dangerous variants can emerge in unvaccinated corners of the world and spread everywhere.

I agree - it's a very odd letter. Harry has done some important work for AIDS causes, but I don't feel that this letter reflects that. Covid is a different ball game: very sadly, there's still no vaccine against HIV, after nearly 40 years. I'm not sure why he's attacking the WHO, and I find it quite frustrating that people keep attacking "pharma" - who worked miracles to produce vaccines under a year after Covid first emerged.

Diana played a game-changing role in attitudes towards people with HIV and AIDS, so I think it was quite reasonable to mention her, but it seems rather odd to use World AIDS Day as a platform for talking about Covid vaccines.

[Tatiana Maria]

Read the judgment here:
HRH the Duchess of Sussex v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 1810 (02 December 2021)

Read the press summary here: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/...10.pdf#page=31


I have highlighted in bold the key points from the press summary:

[...] the Duchess had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the Letter. Those contents were personal, private and not matters of legitimate public interest [84]. The articles in the Mail on Sunday interfered with the Duchess’s reasonable expectation of privacy, and were not a justified or proportionate means of correcting inaccuracies about the Letter contained in an article published on 6 February 2019 in People magazine in the USA ([95] and [106]).

The key point was that the Mail on Sunday articles focused on revealing the contents of the Letter, rather than providing Mr Markle’s response to the attack on him in People magazine ([77], [95] and [106]). The headline: “Revealed: The letter showing true tragedy of Meghan’s rift with a father she says has ‘broken her heart into a million pieces’” and the first line of the Mail on Sunday article: “[t]he full content of a sensational letter written by [the Duchess] to her estranged father shortly after her wedding can be revealed for the first time today” demonstrated that the Mail on Sunday articles were splashed as a new public revelation of extracts from the Duchess’s Letter to her father, rather than her father’s answers to what People magazine had written ([95] and [102]).

Associated Newspapers argued that the judge had failed to realise how People magazine had traduced Mr Markle by alleging that he had cold shouldered his daughter at the time of the wedding, lied about her shutting him out, and ignored her pleas for reconciliation in a loving Letter [73]. The Court of Appeal found that the judge had been right to decide that just one paragraph of the Letter could have been justifiably deployed to rebut the allegation in People magazine that the Duchess’s Letter was loving, when in fact it was a Letter reprimanding Mr Markle for talking to the press and asking him to stop doing so ([95] and [106]).

[...]

The Court of Appeal commented that the new evidence that had been provided to it had also been widely publicised in the press, nationally and internationally [68]. In those circumstances, it decided that the new evidence should be admitted as a matter of pure pragmatism, even though it was more directed to the drafting of the Letter and to what the Duchess knew about the contacts between the Kensington Palace Communications Team and the authors of the book, “Finding Freedom” (the Book), than to the issues in the appeal [70].

[...] It had appeared from new evidence from Mr Knauf that he had provided some information to the authors of the Book with the Duchess’s knowledge [71]. The Court of Appeal said that this was, at best, an unfortunate lapse of memory on her part, but did not bear on the issues, and had been given no prominence in Associated Newspapers’ oral argument [71].

[...]

The Court of Appeal concluded by reiterating the narrowness of the issues it had to decide [105].

Permanent link to the Duchess of Sussex's statement from her lawyer's Twitter account: https://twitter.com/JennyAfia/status...65547571027971

[HighGoalHighDreams]

I think everyone knew that the Mail would lose its appeal, and that may include the Mail.

The tradeoff of having Meghan's word be utterly untrustworthy on any serious matter is (1) probably what they were going for and (2) almost certainly worth it. I mean, who, knowing that she would lie and perjure herself in the interest of promoting her own untruths would believe her on anything now or in the future?

Meghan and Harry's narrative has always been that it is unfair that they have to "sit back and watch untruths be printed about them." The Mail successfully proved that they, too, have had to watch untruths be spewed by Meghan and Harry-- in fact, that millions of people have long been taken in by the untruths spewed by this couple for their own self-interest. I suspect this entire appeal was merely an attempt to get that out in the open, rather than an attempt to win.

[Tatiana Maria]

Originally Posted by yukari

After the last revelation, I can't help to think that perhaps after being in the Suit for so long, she started to think that she could use this case as her "stage" to "pull heartstring". But it's backfire and seems to cost her her (former) staff's loyalty instead.

If you refer to the couple's former communications secretary Jason Knauf, he has not said anything critical of his former employers.

However, Mr. Knauf reportedly recently claimed that Kensington Palace's statement attacking the British press and public in November 2016, which was issued in Mr. Knauf's own name, was in reality written by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle:

Although he ended up working solely for William and Kate, Knauf was originally far closer to Harry when he first joined the Kensington Palace press office in 2015.

[...]

The statement “by the Communications Secretary to Prince Harry”, published on November 8, 2016, read: “The past week has seen a line crossed. His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment.”

Detailing how she had been “smeared” and calling out the “racial undertones” of comment pieces, the strongly worded warning put Knauf in a difficult position. Suddenly the palace was being pitted against the press whom it was his job to liaise with.

By referencing how Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, had “had to struggle past photographers in order to get to her front door” and “the attempts of reporters and photographers to gain illegal entry to her home and the calls to police that followed”, the salvo also set the tone for a narrative that would continue throughout the Sussexes’ tenure at “The Firm”, all the way to Oprah’s sofa. Namely, that like Diana, the late Princess of Wales, Meghan was a victim.

[...]

Friends of Knauf say he had no choice but to sign off the statement, even though it put him in an awkward position with the journalists he had to deal with on a daily basis. Not least when a rather “desperate” Harry appeared to intimate not putting it out might cost him his fledgling relationship with “The One”.

The 403-word statement, which the Telegraph understands was drafted with both Harry and Meghan’s input, not only set a new precedent far removed from the Queen’s tried and tested “never complain, never explain” mantra. It also marked the Duchess’s first hands-on foray into royal media management, which would continue throughout her time in the Royal Family.

Rather than picking their battles, the couple made it clear that they would be paying much closer attention to what had been written about them. [...]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-fa...ess-difficult/

[Tatiana Maria]

Originally Posted by winifred

Interestingly - or not! - there's nothing yet in the Mail online (sister publication), a full hour after the news came out.

For comparison, the BBC's report was published around an hour after your post, according to the timestamp.

[TLLK]

Originally Posted by HighGoalHighDreams

I think everyone knew that the Mail would lose its appeal, and that may include the Mail.

The tradeoff of having Meghan's word be utterly untrustworthy on any serious matter is (1) probably what they were going for and (2) almost certainly worth it. I mean, who, knowing that she would lie and perjure herself in the interest of promoting her own untruths would believe her on anything now or in the future?

Meghan and Harry's narrative has always been that it is unfair that they have to "sit back and watch untruths be printed about them." The Mail successfully proved that they, too, have had to watch untruths be spewed by Meghan and Harry-- in fact, that millions of people have long been taken in by the untruths spewed by this couple for their own self-interest. I suspect this entire appeal was merely an attempt to get that out in the open, rather than an attempt to win.

This victory has come at a high cost to the couples' reputation IMO.

[Erin9]

Originally Posted by TLLK

This victory has come at a high cost to the couples' reputation IMO.

Agreed.

I don’t think it has hurt them business- wise/financially.

But- both of their reputations have taken something of a hit to win this. Neither came out of this looking good imo- manipulative, conniving and liars/perjurers are words that come to mind. My guess is this will follow them- on some level- for a long time.

[Moonmaiden23]

I am not surprised that Meghan won this. Frankly she should have. The MoS published a private letter without permission, and that is the bottom line.

Whether or not she wrote it with the expectation that it might possibly be leaked is beside the point.

But Meghan's win has come with a very heavy price. The suspicion that she and her husband can be dishonest and manipulative and coldly cynical has been reinforced, established as fact.

Her reputation has taken a serious hit along with Harry's.

Was it worth it in the end to sue over the publishing of a private letter which(without knowing all the facts behind it) really made her look rather sympathetic?

Meghan won her battle. The MoS won the war.

[yukari]

Should I be surprised that MoS hasn't given up yet?

Meghan Markle says privacy victory against Mail on Sunday is ‘for anyone scared to stand up for what’s right’

(...)

A spokesperson for Associated Newspapers said the publisher was “very disappointed” by the Court of Appeal’s decision.

“It is our strong view that judgment should be given only on the basis of evidence tested at trial, and not on a summary basis in a heavily contested case, before even disclosure of documents,” they said in a statement.

“No evidence has been tested in cross-examination, as it should be, especially when Mr Knauf’s evidence raises issues as to the Duchess’s credibility.

(...)

“We are considering an appeal to the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom.”