British justice postponed Thursday to autumn the trial of the publisher of the tabloid Daily Mail, attacked by Meghan Markle, the wife of Prince Harry, for invasion of privacy.
The former 39-year-old American actress notably accuses Associated Newspapers – which publishes the Mail Online, the Daily Mail and its Sunday version Mail on Sunday – of having invaded her privacy by publishing extracts from a letter addressed to his father Thomas Markle in August 2018.
The trial was originally scheduled to take place in January, but lawyers for the Duchess of Sussex called on Thursday morning, at a hearing closed to the public at the High Court in London, to postpone the date “much later in the day. ‘year’, for a ‘confidential reason’.
“The right decision is to accept the postponement request,” Judge Warby, in charge of the case, said at a public hearing. “This means that the date of January 11 is canceled and that the trial will be rescheduled for a new date in the fall” january, he added, referring to “October or November”.
In addition to the confidential reason, the judge indicated that the postponement was justified by a legal process initiated by Meghan Markle, which could see the case resolved without trial.
The former actress also intends to appeal against the decision at the end of September of the British justice to allow the Mail on Sunday to support its defense on “Finding Freedom” (Towards freedom), a recent biography of the couple returning to their estrangement of the British monarchy.
Attorneys for Associated Newspapers had claimed that Meghan had “cooperated with the authors” of this book which refers to the letter for the distribution of which they are being sued, which she denies.
Prince Harry, sixth in the order of succession to the British crown, has repeatedly denounced media pressure on his couple and made it the main reason for his withdrawal from the royal family, announced in January and effective early April.
Installed since in California (United States), the couple is at open war against the press and lodged a complaint in July against an American agency which they accuse of having photographed their son Archie in their garden.
The 36-year-old prince has also initiated separate legal proceedings against another British tabloid, the Daily Mirror, for alleged phone hacks.