Meghan Markle’s request to postpone her privacy court case battle has reportedly been approved by a High Court judge due to “confidential” reasons.
WATCH: Queen offers Harry and Meghan a lifeline
The 39-year-old is suing Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Mail on Sunday, for allegedly releasing a letter she wrote to her estranged father Thomas Markle in 2018.
The trial was due to start in London on January 11, with Meghan and her father expected to give evidence, but it was postponed on Thursday, following a private High Court hearing.
According to Express, High Court judge Mr Justice Warby said that the decision to postpone the case until at least September 2021 was primarily based on “confidential” reasons.
“The right decision in all the circumstances is to grant the application to adjourn,” Mr Warby said.
“That means that the trial date of January 11 2021 will be vacated and the trial will be refixed for a new date in the autumn.”
Meghan and her team reportedly also asked for the trial date to be delayed after Judge Francesca Kaye rejected her request to make the biography Finding Freedom inadmissible in the case.
The decision comes after Judge Francesca Kaye rejected her request to make the explosive biography Finding Freedom inadmissible in the case.
While it has been suggested Meghan and Prince Harry collaborated with the book’s authors Carolyn Durand and Omid Scobie, the royal couple have denied such claims.
The postponement decision comes after Meghan lost the first round of her legal battle back in May when Judge Mark Warby dismissed some of the causes of action that were in her lawsuit, which included claims that the newspaper acted “dishonestly” by only quoting parts of her letter.
Court documents later released in July revealed that Meghan felt “unprotected” by the “institution” of the royal family during her pregnancy with baby Archie.
According to the documents, Meghan claimed she suffered “tremendous emotional distress and damage to her mental health” after so much media attention and that her friends felt “silenced” by Kensington Palace and unable to defend her.
“As her friends had never seen her in this state before, they were rightly concerned for her welfare, specifically as she was pregnant, unprotected by the Institution, and prohibited from defending herself,” the documents read.
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