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Princess Diana’s former aide warns Prince Harry over attack on Press

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Princess Diana’s former aide warns Prince Harry over attack on Press

Prince Diana’s former private secretary has warned Meghan Markle and Prince Harry about their ‘blunderbuss’ attack on the media, warning it could easily backfire.Patrick Jephson, who served the royal from 1988 to 1996, said public sympathy was ‘notoriously volatile’, and the long legal battle and potential court appearances would be a ‘punishing trek’.He also criticised Harry’s extraordinary personal statement announcing his decision to sue the Mail On Sunday, comparing its ‘borrowed invective’ to the anti-Press rants of Donald Trump.Harry and Meghan in Johannesburg on October 2 and Diana with her then private secretary Patrick Jephson (right) Writing in The Guardian, Mr Jephson compared the couple’s current legal battle with Diana’s decision to sue The Mirror for publishing photos of her working out in a gym, saying he had found the experience to be counter-productive.He described the eventual court victory and settlement – which he heard about during a foreign royal tour – as ‘rather deflating’.’It didn’t feel like a victory parade and, funnily enough, next day the familiar faces of the press pack wore expressions that were everything except contrite,’ he wrote.’And they were still just as peskily objective, as they always should be in a democracy of which (to borrow a phrase from Prince Harry’s statement) they are the cornerstone.’Harry and Meghan announced the opening salvo of their war with the tabloids in a statement to their personal website on Tuesday, which carried the Duke’s name.On Friday, it emerged Harry had also begun legal action against The Sun and The Mirror for alleged phone hacking.Prince Harry used his statement to accuse the tabloid Press of embarking on a ‘ruthless campaign’ against Meghan.He also referenced Princess Diana and said his ‘deepest fear’ was his ‘wife falling victim to the same powerful forces’ that his mother faced. Diana, Princess of Wales, visiting a clinic in Angola in 1997 In response Mr Jephson wrote: ‘Diana may have been something in the mould-breaker stakes herself, but she never ducked Balmoral, lectured voters on democracy or borrowed invective more normally found in the White House to communicate with a free and fundamentally friendly press.’He also referred to criticism of the British media from America, suggesting Meghan’s ‘celebrity sisters’ needed to ‘learn the difference between bullying and criticism, between sarcasm and irony’.Prince Harry’s legal action against the Mail on Sunday related to the publication of a letter to her estranged father Thomas Markle.The letter was revealed by Mr Markle in an interview in which he said how hurt he was by comments made by the Duchess’s friends in an article for People magazine.Today, the 75-year-old said he did not intend to share a private letter sent by Meghan, but felt pressured to do so after he was ‘mischaracterised’ in the People article.A spokesman for the Mail on Sunday said: ‘The Mail on Sunday stands by the story it published and will be defending this case vigorously. Specifically, we categorically deny that the Duchess’s letter was edited in any way that changed its meaning.’On Friday, Prince Harry also began legal action against The Sun and The Mirror for alleged phone hacking. The Duchess of Sussex holding her son, Archie, during their visit to Cape Town on September 25  The details have not been made public but are believed to relate to dates in the 2000s when the prince was in his early twenties.Both newspapers have paid millions to settle phone hacking claims by celebrities over the same period.If Harry decides to shun an out-of-court settlement, it raises the prospect of a serving member of the Royal Family entering the witness box.Unlike other famous claimants, he might decide he preferred the publicity to the money, if he was trying to make a point.  Full statement from the Duke of Sussex’As a couple, we believe in media freedom and objective, truthful reporting. We regard it as a cornerstone of democracy and in the current state of the world – on every level – we have never needed responsible media more.’Unfortunately, my wife has become one of the latest victims of a British tabloid press that wages campaigns against individuals with no thought to the consequences – a ruthless campaign that has escalated over the past year, throughout her pregnancy and while raising our newborn son.’There is a human cost to this relentless propaganda, specifically when it is knowingly false and malicious, and though we have continued to put on a brave face – as so many of you can relate to – I cannot begin to describe how painful it has been. Because in today’s digital age, press fabrications are repurposed as truth across the globe. One day’s coverage is no longer tomorrow’s chip-paper.’Up to now, we have been unable to correct the continual misrepresentations – something that these select media outlets have been aware of and have therefore exploited on a daily and sometimes hourly basis.’It is for this reason we are taking legal action, a process that has been many months in the making.’The positive coverage of the past week from these same publications exposes the double standards of this specific press pack that has vilified her almost daily for the past nine months; they have been able to create lie after lie at her expense simply because she has not been visible while on maternity leave.’She is the same woman she was a year ago on our wedding day, just as she is the same woman you’ve seen on this Africa tour.’For these select media this is a game, and one that we have been unwilling to play from the start. I have been a silent witness to her private suffering for too long. To stand back and do nothing would be contrary to everything we believe in.’This particular legal action hinges on one incident in a long and disturbing pattern of behaviour by British tabloid media. The contents of a private letter were published unlawfully in an intentionally destructive manner to manipulate you, the reader, and further the divisive agenda of the media group in question.’In addition to their unlawful publication of this private document, they purposely misled you by strategically omitting select paragraphs, specific sentences, and even singular words to mask the lies they had perpetuated for over a year.’There comes a point when the only thing to do is to stand up to this behaviour, because it destroys people and destroys lives. Put simply, it is bullying, which scares and silences people. We all know this isn’t acceptable, at any level. We won’t and can’t believe in a world where there is no accountability for this.’Though this action may not be the safe one, it is the right one. Because my deepest fear is history repeating itself. I’ve seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces.’We thank you, the public, for your continued support. It is hugely appreciated. Although it may not seem like it, we really need it.’

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