Meghan Markle apologizes for “forgetting” key information in a court case and says she did not want to “mislead” the court

The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, has apologized for hiding the truth from a British court about the extent of her cooperation with the authors of a book about her and her husband, Prince Harry.

The Duchess is involved in legal action in London over the publication in a newspaper of parts of a letter she wrote to her father, who he distanced himself from her after his 2018 marriage to Harry, one of the grandchildren of Queen Elizabeth II.

The Duchess sued the editor of The Mail on Sunday newspaper and the MailOnline website for violation of privacy and copyright.

A Superior Court judge ruled in his favor in February, saying that the publication of the letter he wrote to his father, Thomas Markle, was “manifestly excessive and therefore illegal“.

The Associated Newspapers publisher is seeking to overturn that decision before the Court of Appeal. He argues that Meghan wrote the letter with the knowledge that it could be published and made private information public by cooperating with Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, authors of the book. Finding Freedom.

The duchess’s lawyers had previously denied that she or her husband had collaborated with the perpetrators. However, the couple’s former communications director, Jason Knauf, testified in court that did offer information to the writers and that he discussed it with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

In his witness statement, Knauf said the book was “discussed directly with the Duchess on multiple occasions in person and via email.” Emails released as part of Knauf’s statement showed that he also emailed Harry to discuss the book and say he would meet with the authors.

Knauf said that the prince replied: “I totally agree that we have to be able to say that we had nothing to do with it. In the same way, giving them the right context and background would help to elicit some truths ”.

In a witness statement released Wednesday, Meghan Markle agreed: “Knauf did provide some information to the authors for the book, to my knowledge, for a meeting he planned with the authors in his capacity as secretary of communications.”

He added that “the extent of the information he shared is unknown to me”.

The duchess said she did not recall the discussions with Knauf when she testified earlier in the case, “and I apologize to the court for not having recalled these exchanges at the time.”

“I had absolutely no desire or intention to mislead the defendant or the court,” he said.

[El príncipe Harry y Meghan Markle sorprenden al público en el Global Citizen Live de Nueva York]

Associated Newspapers says Knauf’s evidence also undermines Meghan Markle’s claim that she did not intend for the letter to be seen by anyone other than her father.

In his witness statement, Knauf said the Duchess asked him “to review the text of the letter, saying that ‘obviously everything written is with the understanding that it could be filtered‘”.

[Meghan Markle arremete contra la casa real británica]

Knauf said Meghan Markle asked him if she should address her father in the letter as “daddy,” adding that, “in the unfortunate event it leaked, it would strike a chord.”