Write A Letter To Dad, Meghan Markle Asks For Senior Noble Advice

Meghan Markle (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Meghan Markle seeks advice from two senior royals in the United Kingdom before writing a letter to her father which is at the center of a lawsuit over privacy against tabloid newspapers.

Prince Harry's wife sues the Associated Newspapers over an article in the Mail on Sunday that contains part of a letter she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle, in August 2018.

Meghan said publishing the letter to the public violated the security of personal information, and her lawyers were seeking compensation for the breach.

Meghan and her father haven't spoken since she canceled her May 2018 wedding due to poor health, but Thomas has spoken to the media several times.

In a recent filing with the London High Court, Meghan Markle's legal team disputed Mail's claim that the letter was part of a media strategy but was written after listening to "advice from two senior members of the Work Family" to get Thomas to stop talking to the media, his lawyer said.

Meghan drafted her letter on the iPhone over several weeks, sharing it with Harry and Communications Secretary Jason Knauf who responded, but did not dictate, the document said.

"The plaintiff, and the Plaintiff himself made the electronic draft, then wrote it into a letter to his father," the lawyer said adding Meghan had followed palace protocol.

Lawyers said Meghan had allowed some information to be passed on through a third party to the couple's biographers because she was concerned about her "father's narrative" and wanted her "real position" to be communicated.

Newspaper attorneys argue that the biographical book shows Meghan does indeed want to disclose some details of her private life to the public, including a letter to her father, as part of an effort to get the media to portray her more positively.

But Meghan's legal team insists that Meghan and Harry have not intervened or been interviewed for the book at all.

This case raises the possibility that Thomas provided evidence against his daughter in court. However, Judge Mark Warby said Thomas Markle was not an important eye witness in the case and it was inaccurate to call this a family fight.