Meghan Markle wins High Court bid to keep friends' identities secret in battle with Mail on Sunday

Meghan Markle has won a High Court bid to keep secret the identities of five friends who gave an anonymous interview to a US magazine.

The ruling is the latest stage of the Duchess of Sussex' legal action against Associated Newspapers (ANL), the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and MailOnline.

Meghan is bringing the legal action over an article which reproduced parts of a handwritten letter which she sent to her father, Thomas Markle, 75, in August 2018.

She is seeking damages for alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of the Data Protection Act over publication of the "private and confidential" letter.

At a preliminary hearing in London last week, Meghan's lawyers applied for the five friends who gave an interview to People magazine to remain anonymous in reports of the proceedings.

ANL's legal team resisted the application.

As part of its defence, the paper argues that it had published the letter in response to an article in the U.S. magazine People which was based on anonymous interviews with five of Meghan's friends.

Judge Mark Warby ruled at London's High Court on Wednesday that their names could not be published as part of the her lawsuit in which she says the Mail invaded her privacy and breached her copyright.

Mr Warby said: "I have concluded that, for the time being at least, the court should grant the claimant the order that she seeks."

The anonymity issue is a preliminary matter with the full trial not expected until next year.

In the People article, published in February last year, the friends spoke out against the bullying Meghan said she has faced.

They have only been identified in confidential court documents.

The duchess, 39, says her friends gave the interview without her knowledge, and denies a claim made by ANL that she "caused or permitted" the People article to be published.

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