Thread by @chrisshipitv

New developments in the High Court this morning in Meghan versus Mail on Sunday case 👇

https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1307972238386311169

A trial date has been provisionally set for the full Meghan versus Mail on Sunday privacy case: 11 January 2021

The court has been told that Meghan intends to call 4 witness as part of her privacy claim against the Mail on Sunday.
The newspaper will call 3 witnesses.
So total 7 witness in court

The Mail on Sunday is now claiming in its defence that the August publication of the book Finding Freedom “gives every appearance of having been written with [Harry & Meghan’s] extensive co-operation” and contains “a great deal of information about [Meghan’s] personal life”.

The Mail on Sunday legal team now also referring to statements @scobie made at the time @people published its interviews with Meghan’s 5 friends, suggesting Meghan “had given her blessing to her friends speaking to @people”.

The newspaper suggest @scobie and his co-author @CarolynDurand “had already been given information about Meghan’s relationship with her father and about the Letter”.

Meghan’s legal team estimates she will have legal costs of £1.8million - and the Mail on Sunday £1.23 million.
That’s an estimated £3million in total for the 7-10 day trial next year in the High Court 😳

Essentially Mail on Sunday wants to amend its Defence case in light of Finding Freedom book which it claims Meghan “co-operated with” to set out a “favourable”version of events.
Duchess’ legal team says neither she nor Harry “collaborated with the authors” @scobie @CarolynDurand

Mail on Sunday is now claiming that Meghan was “frustrated” the Palace’s media approach - and decided to “bypass” the press office in late 2018 and use her friends “as de facto PR agents” in order “to influence the media in a positive way”.

The newspaper’s legal team says they are aware of at least one incident in April 2018 when Meghan used her friend @jessicamulroney to act as a “PR agent” on Meghan’s behalf to “influence” press coverage.
The Mail on Sunday says this is admitted by Meghan’s legal team.

The newspaper says Meghan permitted her friend @jessicamulroney to intervene in an interview @GinaKrugco was giving to the Mail on Sunday in April 2018. The paper will use this as part of its claim Meghan’s deployed her friends to influence what was written about her in the press

We also learn that Finding Freedom author @scobie has given a witness statement to say the book was “independent and unauthorised”. The Mail on Sunday says it “will wish to test @scobie’s evidence in cross-examination”. 📚

The newspaper defence says @scobie “seems to confirm that people working on behalf of [Meghan] co-operated with the authors and gave them the names of people close to [Meghan] who would help.” It adds @scobie implies “he spoke to then both [Harry & Meghan] with some frequency”.

Judge Francesca Kaye has just said to both Meghan’s lawyers and the Mail on Sunday lawyers that their estimated costs in excess of £3million “are disproportionate”.
Neither sums are “modest” she said and are not proportionate “to the issues being discussed in this case”. 💰💰

Mail on Sunday lawyer now saying @scobie & @CarolynDurand “authors’ note” in Finding Freedom book claims they spoke “where appropriate” to Harry & Meghan themselves.
Basically, the biography has given Mail’s lawyers much more ammunition against Meghan’s claim than they had before

Lawyer now quoting an interview @scobie gave to @GMA when he said no true friend of Meghan’s would speak to @people without Meghan’s permission.
Meghan’s lawyer is up next ...

Mail’s lawyer asking the judge how did authors know “intensely personal” information like Meghan’s chats with her mother after Archie was born, or how she felt when Harry gave her a present - if Harry and Meghan *hadn’t cooperated with the authors of Finding Freedom 📚

Mail on Sunday lawyer says it would be “wrong to shut that additional material out” of this case. He wants the judge to allow them to amend their defence case versus Meghan at this late stage.
All because of the publication of Finding Freedom biography last month

Meghan’s (new) lawyer is up. Says the MailOnSunday is basically admitting “we don’t have any evidence-only inferences”.
And the only 2 people in the world who know what information was given to them “are the authors” @scobie @CarolynDurand
They say Harry/Meghan didn’t cooperate

Meghan’s legal team: “what the authors of the book [Finding Freedom] have done, is to collate a vast amount of scraps of information about the claimant [Meghan] and collate them” in the book.
That doesn’t mean it had to come from Harry & Meghan themselves.

Meghan’s lawyers say Finding Freedom authors @scobie & @CarolynDurand were *not shown Meghan’s letter to her dad Thomas Markle for their book.
They actually lifted the quotes from the Mail on Sunday’s own articles (which are the reasons why Meghan is suing the newspaper)

In trying to squash the claim that Harry and Meghan collaborated with @scobie and @CarolynDurand, Meghan’s lawyer is basically saying the authors lifted chunks of Finding Freedom from the Mail on Sunday and @DailyMailUK’s own articles.
A strange approach 🤷🏼

Of that @scobie chat on @GMA mentioned above about Meghan’s friends speaking on her behalf 👆, Meghan’s lawyer tells the court: “Mr Scobie says he was speaking without any special knowledge but as a matter of his own opinion”.

It is the case of Meghan’s legal team that a new book about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has no bearing on her privacy claim against the Mail on Sunday.
Her lawyer says: “private correspondence is quintessentially private”.
And ‘public interest’ is no defence in publishing it