Meghan Markle issues complaint after Amol Rajan says she misled court in podcast

The Duchess of Sussex has complained to the BBC after it said she had apologised for ‘misleading’ the High Court.

The broadcaster said last night Meghan had asked it to ‘clarify’ that she had, in fact, apologised for ‘not remembering’ asking her former PR chief to help with the controversial royal biography Finding Freedom.

She had previously denied co-operating with the project. The BBC said she had ‘no intention to mislead the court on this’.

It came after the duchess reacted to a segment of a podcast – Harry, Meghan And The Media – to accompany broadcaster Amol Rajan’s BBC2 documentary The Princes And The Press. 

The broadcaster said last night Meghan had asked it to ‘clarify’ that she had, in fact, apologised for ‘not remembering’ asking her former PR chief to help with the controversial royal biography Finding Freedom

She had previously denied co-operating with the project. The BBC said she had ‘no intention to mislead the court on this’

In it he referred to her recent legal victory over The Mail on Sunday over the publication of a ‘private’ letter to her estranged father.

During the case, it emerged that she had failed to remember email exchanges with her communications secretary Jason Knauf in which they discussed briefing writers Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand.

Rajan said on the podcast: ‘Initially Meghan Markle had said she hadn’t helped Scobie with the book. She apologised for misleading the court on this.’

A statement issued by the BBC yesterday said: ‘The Duchess of Sussex has asked us to clarify that she apologised to the court for not remembering email exchanges with her former communications secretary, Jason Knauf, in her evidence and said that she had no intention to mislead the court.’

Last year Mr Knauf revealed Meghan had allowed him to speak to the authors of Finding Freedom – contradicting her previous denials of involvement in statements to the High Court – by sending him details that could be shared with them.

Meghan previously claimed she did not know whether her team had given information to the Finding Freedom authors and insisted she had not been contacted by aides for ‘clarification of any matters relating to the book’.

But in an exchange shortly before Mr Knauf was due to meet the journalists, she said: ‘For when you sit down with them it may be helpful to have some background reminders so I’ve included them below just in case. I know you are better versed at this than most but assisting where I can. I appreciate your support – please let me know if you need me to fill in any other blanks. Thank you!’

Scobie had earlier submitted the list of topics to discuss, to which Meghan had then responded.

She later told the High Court she had ‘absolutely no wish or intention to mislead the defendant or the court’ but accepted Mr Knauf had offered information for the book ‘with my knowledge’.

The programme sparked a row between Buckingham Palace and the BBC, with all three royal households releasing a rare joint statement criticising the broadcaster for giving credibility to ‘overblown and unfounded’ claims that they had briefed journalists against Harry and Meghan.

It was also lambasted for giving airtime to the duchess’s lawyer denying accusations that she had bullied staff without any critical examination of those claims.