London, nov. 11 (EFE) – Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, has apologized to London’s High Court for “forgetting“ that she had asked her ex-assistant to provide instructions to the authors of a non-authorized biography about her and her husband.
Meghan presented her apologies and denied any intention to mislead the court after an appeal hearing, regarding her privacy case.
At this hearing, it was revealed that a person who happened to work as the spokesman of the Duchess had given information to the authors of the biographical book Finding Freedom.
According to the ex-spokesman of Prince Harry´s wife, Jason Knauf, Meghan had informed him about some points that he had to share with the writers.
This information came to light as a result of the appeal filed by Associated Newspapers (ANL), owner of the tabloid “The Mail”, against a previous ruling related to the publication of a letter that the Duchess had sent to her father, Thomas Markle.
Meghan had taken the media publisher to court for the publication of five articles where some parts of a “private and personal“ letter, sent to her father in august 2018, were reproduced.
At the beginning of this year, the High Court determined that the disclosure of the letter was illegitimate, which avoided having to go to trial, but now ANL is taking this ruling to the Court of Appeal, arguing that the case should indeed go to trial.
At the last hearing, the court received evidence that Jason Knauf, Meghan and Harry´s former secretary of communications, provided information to the authors of the mentioned book, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand.
He said the biography “was routinely discussed“, and was “discussed directly with the Duchess on multiple occasions, in person and through email“.
Supposedly, Knauf also talked about the possibility of arranging a meeting with the authors to provide a little bit of context and revealed that Meghan had highlighted him “some points“ to share with the writers, like information that detailed how she had had “minimum contact“ with her step-siblings during her childhood.
Some emails that were presented as part of Knauf’s declaration, showed that he had sent one to Harry in order to talk about the book and let him know that he would reunite with the authors.
For her part, on a testimony made public this Wednesday and collected today by the local media, Meghan apologized for having “mislead“ the Court about whether or not her former assistant provided the authors with information.
“I accept that Knauf provided some information to the authors for the book and that he did so with my knowledge, during a reunion that he planned with them in his capacity as secretary of communications“, Meghan said, adding, however, that “the magnitude of the information shared was unknown to her.“
The Duchess regretted “not having remembered those exchanges“ and assured that she did not have any desire or intention to mislead“ the court.
Translated by: Valeria Osorio
