Meghan Markle denied that she wanted a letter her father wrote to her leaked, but acknowledged it as a possibility.
Meghan stated that she did not believe Thomas Markle would release the document in her Court of Appeal written evidence, which was published today. She stated that she did not wish any part of the document to be made public.
She claimed she wrote the letter to put an end to ‘public attack’ because it was putting pressure on her husband.
She wrote in her statement: “Senior family members and their advisors expressed concern about the public attacks and expressed their wish to see them stop.” This was particularly important to me as I just married into the family, and I wanted to please them.
It is true, as I wrote in my text to Mr Knauf, that this situation was exerting significant pressure upon my husband. He also felt that I must do something to change it.
“I believed that even though my attempts to prevent my father from talking to the media were unsuccessful, my husband would still be able tell his family that I did everything possible to stop it,”.
Meghan stated that she did not believe Thomas Markle would release the document in her Court of Appeal written evidence, which was published today. She stated: “To be precise, I didn’t want any part of it published.” Harry and Meghan, September in New York
Meghan apologized to the Court of Appeal during the privacy trial before the Mail on Sunday publisher and MailOnline publishers. She had failed to reveal discussions that Jason Knauf used to brief the Finding Freedom authors.
The Duchess was unable to recall the emails or locate them in her searches, according to her most recent witness statement.
In addition, the document claims that Mr. Knauf emails helped her case.
“I didn’t have the opportunity to see these emails, and I apologize to the Court that I did not remember these exchanges at that time.”
I had no intention or desire to mislead either the Court nor the Defendant. In fact, if I had known about these exchanges when I served the Reamended Reply, they would have been more than willing to be referred to me as I strongly believe that they supported my case.
She added: ‘Not only do I refer to the background information shared with Mr Knauf as “reminders”, as much of it was information that he had already requested of me dating back to 2016 when he had asked me for a timeline relating to my family to enable him to engage with the media on enquiries, it is also a far cry from the very detailed personal information that the Defendant alleges that I wanted or permitted to put into the public domain.’
She claimed she wrote the letter to end ‘public attacks’ that were “putting pressure” on her husband, the Royal Family. Pictured, Thomas Markle
The Duchess also stated that she didn’t believe her father would leaked a handwritten note from her, stating in her written statement.
Meghan wrote to the Court of Appeal denial that she believed it probable Thomas Markle would leak this document. However, she had planned for it.
She stated that she didn’t believe that her father would leak or sell the letter. This was mainly because it wouldn’t put him in good stead.
She added, “I had not heard anything from him since our wedding week. But it seemed extremely unlikely that he would divulge the contents. They contained unpleasant truths and would thus negate any falsehoods the media had assigned to them.
“The letter’s main purpose was to urge my father not to talk to the media.
“To make it clear, I didn’t want any of this to be publicized and wanted to minimize the chance of it being misinterpreted or manipulated if it was to be used.
The Duchess (pictured here with her father), stated that she didn’t think her father would leaked a letter written by her to him.
When the 2018 letter was sent, Mr Knauf was the communications secretary for both the Sussexes and the Cambridges. He is now head of The Royal Foundation, the Cambridges’ main charitable organisation, but is set to leave this post at the end of the year.
The Court of Appeal is being urged to overturn Mr Justice Warby’s summary judgment and send the case to a full trial, at which the duchess would be expected to be cross-examined.
Meghan’s legal team is opposing the appeal and argues that the High Court judge reached the right conclusions on the evidence before him. It also objects to the introduction of Mr Knauf’s new evidence and says that, if the court accepts his statement, Meghan will also wish to put forward new evidence. According to the court, she has provided a statement of 23 pages.
Her lawyers said her letter to Mr Markle had been ‘self-evidently intended to be kept private’ and that Mr Justice Warby had ‘meticulously assessed the factors’ and was ‘fully entitled to reach the conclusions that he did’. This case will continue until Thursday with a decision to be made at a later time.