Meghan Markle‘s father, Thomas Markle is prepared to testify against her over a claim that a tabloid newspaper unlawfully unpublished one of her private letters to him.
According to The Telegraph Meghan‘s estranged father is expected to be called as a key witness for the defence in a court case against Meghan‘s action for breach of privacy, copyright and data protection.
In October, 2019 The Duchess of Sussex took the legal action against the Mail on Sunday after it published extracts of a letter she wrote to her father in August 2018. In one extract published by the newspaper, the duchess wrote:
“Your actions have broken my heart into a million pieces- not simply because you have manufactured such unnecessary and unwarranted pain but my making the choice to not tell the truth as you are puppeteered in this. Something I will never understand.”
Thomas Markle, 75, has given lawyers previously unseen text messages and letters sent in the build-up to Meghan‘s wedding to Prince Harry that reveal intimate details of their broken father-daughter relationship. The messages set out how he made desperate attempts to mend their relationship after heart surgery forced him to miss her wedding.
Some of the messages were detailed yesterday, January 14, in defense papers filed at the High Court in London.
The documents say that after the elder Markle messaged his daughter saying he couldn’t come to her wedding because he had been rushed to hospital for emergency heart surgery and told not to fly on health grounds, he received a text that appeared to be from Prince Harry.
The message accused him of causing hurt to his daughter and did not ask about his health. It left him”deeply hurt”.
Replying to the text, Thomas Markle wrote: “I’ve done nothing to hurt you Meghan or anyone else … I’m sorry my heart attack is … any inconvenience for you.“
In another message, Thomas Markle said that Meghan had effectively “written me off”.
According to Daily Mail, the defense papers filed by Mail on Sunday reads:
- Thomas Markle only released Meghan’s letter to the world to show it was not the “loving” plea her friends had been making out;
- He had kept her handwritten note private for months, and only revealed it to expose “false” claims that the duchess had been reaching out to repair their relationship;
- He only decided to release extracts of the letter to the Press after she had allowed her friends to talk about it first in the US magazine People;
- That one of Meghan’s best friends, Jessica Mulroney, once intervened to try to fix a “favourable” press article for the duchess;
- Mr Markle had insisted he made multiple attempts to contact his daughter by phone call and by text message, but received no response;
- That apart from the August 2018 letter, Mr Markle had not heard from his daughter since he told her he was too ill to attend her wedding. He had never been introduced to her husband Prince Harry, nor met his eight-month-old grandson Archie.
Lawyers for Mail on Sunday alleged that Meghan had “knowingly” allowed her friends to leak details of the letter to the magazine – effectively that she had helped to breach her own privacy.
According to Daily Mail, if the case goes before a judge, Mail on Sunday said it would ask for Meghan to be forced to hand over all communications in which she had “caused or permitted her friends to provide information about her to the media or to seek to influence what is published about her”.
It could lead to the prospect of Meghan coming face-to-face with her father in the High Court.