The Duchess of Sussex has won a High Court bid to keep secret the identities of five friends who gave an anonymous interview to a US magazine, in the latest stage of her legal action against Associated Newspapers.

Meghan is suing the publisher of the Mail On Sunday and Mail Online over an article that reproduced parts of a “private and confidential” handwritten letter she sent to her estranged father Thomas Markle, 76, in August 2018.

At a preliminary hearing in London last week, Meghan‘s lawyers applied for the five friends who gave an interview to People magazine to remain anonymous in reports of the proceedings.