Shortly before his elevation to the Court of Appeal, Warby J has handed down judgment in the application for summary judgment.

A key element of the application was that a letter sent by the Duchess to her father, Thomas Markle, should not have been published as it was private.  The Judge affirmed the test for privacy, including that the Duchess had a reasonable expectation of privacy and that it was not in the public interest for large excerpts from the letter to be published.  Newspapers are now likely to much warier before publishing private correspondence between family members.  Privacy is also a powerful sword when seeking damages, an injunction and/or a declaration in such claims.  Parts of the claim remain to be resolved, including the data protection element of the claim.  Dr Anton van Dellen appears regularly in the High Court, including in defamation claims.