The Duchess of Sussex has applied to the High Court to request that the names of her five friends who defended her to a US magazine are not released publicly.

In her application, Meghan has requested that Associated Newspapers, which owns the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, does not divulge the names of the friends that supported her in People magazine earlier this year.

Meghan is currently suing Associated Newspapers over the publication in February 2019 of a “private and confidential” letter written by her to her estranged father, Thomas Markle.

An article published in People magazine in February this year included comments from the five anonymous friends about the bullying that they said the Duchess had faced at the hands of the tabloid media.

The five friends have thus far only been identified in confidential court documents.

Now, in a witness statement submitted to the High Court as part of Meghan’s application to keep those names private, she writes:

“Associated Newspapers, the owner of The Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, is threatening to publish the names of five women – five private citizens – who made a choice on their own to speak anonymously with a US media outlet more than a year ago, to defend me from the bullying behaviour of Britain’s tabloid media.

“These five women are not on trial, and nor am I. The publisher of the Mail on Sunday is the one on trial. It is this publisher that acted unlawfully and is attempting to evade accountability; to create a circus and distract from the point of this case – that the Mail on Sunday unlawfully published my private letter.”

Meghan added that each of these five friends is a private citizen, and added that one of them is a young mother.

“Each has a basic right to privacy,” she continued.

“Both the Mail on Sunday and the court system have their names on a confidential schedule, but for the Mail on Sunday to expose them in the public domain for no reason other than clickbait and commercial gain is vicious and poses a threat to their emotional and mental wellbeing.

“The Mail on Sunday is playing a media game with real lives.”

Associated Newspapers wholly denies the allegations, particularly the claim that the letter was edited in any way that changed its meaning, and says it will hotly contest the case.

The Independent has contacted Associated Newspapers for comment.

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