Meghan Markle is trying to stop a newspaper from naming five of her friends in her court battle.
The Duchess of Sussex has applied to the High Court to stop the Mail and Mail on Sunday from naming her pals in the ongoing lawsuit against the paper's publisher.
Meghan is suing publisher Associated Newspapers over articles in the Mail on Sunday printed last year which included parts of a handwritten letter she had sent to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, in August 2018.
She hit out at the publisher for attempting to 'create a circus' to distract from the point of her case.
Mr Markle and his daughter have not spoken since he pulled out of appearing at her wedding to Harry in May 2018 after
undergoing heart surgery and following news he had staged photos with a paparazzi photographer.
The Mail justified publishing the letter by saying five unnamed friends of Meghan had put her version of events in interviews with the U.S. magazine People.
Her legal team say it was untrue she had authorised or arranged for her friends to tell People about the letter, and on Thursday said Associated Newspapers were threatening to publish their names.
"These five women are not on trial, and nor am I. The publisher of the Mail on Sunday is the one on trial," Meghan said in a witness statement.
"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.
"I respectfully ask the court to treat this legal matter with the sensitivity it deserves, and to prevent the publisher of the Mail on Sunday from breaking precedent and abusing the legal process by identifying these anonymous individuals"
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