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LAWYERS FOR A British newspaper group that Meghan Markle is suing for publishing a private letter to her estranged father called on Wednesday for a full trial to “shed light” on the case.
The Duchess of Sussex launched legal action against Associated Newspapers, which publishes the Mail on Sunday and MailOnline website, for printing extracts of the letter to Thomas Markle.
The letter was written in August 2018, a few months after Meghan Markle married Prince Harry, and asked her father to stop talking to tabloids and making false claims about her in interviews.
Her legal team are seeking damages and argue there is no need for a full trial, as it was a clear breach of her privacy and copyright.
Should the judge agree, it would avoid a potential showdown between father and daughter at the High Court in London.
A lawyer representing Associated Newspapers, Antony White, told judge Mark Warby that the case “cries out for investigation” and was “wholly unsuitable for summary judgement”.
White said a letter from lawyers representing four former employees of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said that “further oral evidence and documentary evidence is likely to be available at trial, which would shed light on certain key factual issues in the case”.
The letter from lawyers representing the four, who worked in communications and as a private secretary for the Sussexes, says that “one or more of our clients would be in a position to shed some light” on the “creation of the letter and the electronic draft”.
‘Media strategy’
White argued that the Duchess wanted the contents of her letter to be made public, saying she had discussed it with the Kensington Palace communications team and passed information on it through friends to authors of a book about her and Prince Harry.
“It would be unfair to deprive or find against a person on an issue about privacy simply because they have disclosed something about their private life in an attempt to deal with unfair or unwarranted disclosures by others,” he told the court.
Meghan’s lawyers have denied she intended the letter to be made public at some point, or that she collaborated with the authors of the biography, which also contained partial extracts of the letter.
Meghan and Harry, who quit frontline royal duties in March last year citing media intrusion, are waging an increasingly public war with some news outlets.
Harry is:
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's home has a very expensive feature from the Queen https://t.co/YAHQ6a2DES
— HELLO! (@hellomag) January 20, 2021
The couple now live with their young son Archie in the United States and have set up a charitable foundation.
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If it’s child protection ,fines can’t be high enough. The levels of vulnerability online are pretty stark .
What’s going to happen with the money increase wage for some overpaid government employees
@Gavin Kelly: That’s genuinely a great question. I see all these fines aimed at tech companies but have no idea if they ever get paid or who actually receives the money. Shouldn’t we as the public know where it goes?
@Wicked Hedgehog: This is a case of saying one thing, that these massive fines and the new digital services legislation are about protecting data in general and child protection in particular and doing another, using them to wield unbridled authoritarian control over the publication of information, media, or opposing opinions that run contrary to the preferred narrative of every issue.
In other words, if these digital platforms and entities don’t apply the censorship that is demanded by the EU to shadow ban users, censor the publication of information, based on what is deemed acceptable, rather than on what is the truth, then they will be fined and or blocked entirely.
but we are told this is not authoritarian censorship to silence dissent, its for the children..
Have an6of these mega fines ever been collected
@Jp Cleary: Not only that but you would also wonder what arrangements are in place to pay it and who gets the money. Is it the E.U or Ireland and if it is Ireland, what Dept gets it and does it show up in Govt accounts? Given the debacle with the E13 billion and the preferential tax system, is this treated as part of their tax payment or do the fines pay for their Data Centres?
Can you post a link to the claims form as I’m due some of that
The data centres being built in Ireland and destroying our electricity grid are for these criminal tech companies. It is a farce and modern day brown envelope shenanigans to allow them to get away with this.
@Lewis Armstrong: then stop consuming vast amounts of data and then the need for DCs will be reduced……
@Lewis Armstrong: Put your phone down, then, and encourage others to do the same.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: Maybe the Journal should become a letters page. A random village green meeting place is chosen as a rendezvous each week,where all letters are opened and read out in public to be greeted with chants of “hear,hear!” or “down with this sort of thing!”
Bejasus! Sure make it 350m and Revolute me the extra 5
@Aiden Durkin: Send me your banking details and I’ll pass it on to the relevant authorities
It’s not often you get to comment on a story on the Journal anymore. Who was the plonker who decided the leader of a criminal gang that preyed on the elderly was entitled to a day out? Jail should mean jail. Seeing as he showed no compassion for the elderly, I wouldn’t think he cared a lot for the dead either ffs.
@Playmisty4me: It was an Irish funeral party. Some of these things can last for days. Besides,he wasn’t the only one that was late that day.
And the fine will be paid by way of chinese disposable vapes
That’d build a few houses.
Dance to that one
If Tik Tok appeals, the DPC should give them a bit of their own medicine and send them a notification saying, ‘Appeal Not Approved’!
That’ll teach ‘em.
Lol.
Can someone tell me what happens if tiktok refuses to pay and also where does the money go if they pay the fine????.
Where does the money go to, if its ever paid? The Exchequer? DPC bonuses?
Test.
That Chinese government-backed TikTok money is coming in 3-2-1…
Have any of these companies actually paid any fines, and if so who gets t money, or will they appeal and end up paying nothing
Who is going to benefit monetarily from these fines
As a national figurehead,it’s been rumoured that Bono will oversee the handover of the fine before the deadline is reached,to prevent further penalties. “What is the latest time we can put this off to,Mr.Bono?” “Eleven o’clock,TikTok”
Good
In the words of jack burton , “the cheque is in the post”
have your say