The Duchess of Sussex reportedly wanted to go public in 2019 with child sex abuse claims made against her father, Thomas Markle, but was allegedly advised against doing so. The Metropolitan Police has confirmed it handed Meghan a letter containing the allegations in January 2019.
The handwritten letter, written by Mr Markle's first wife, Roslyn Loveless, accused him of regularly travelling to the Philippines and Thailand, claiming because "12-year-olds are legal there," along with other child sex crimes. The Met Police confirmed it shared the letter with Meghan and her husband, Prince Harry, for their "awareness," but details were not passed on through the chain of command.
Advice from a Royalty Protection Officer
Meghan, 45, wanted to go public about the allegations after receiving the letter from Loveless, who died in 2024, it is understood. However, an officer from the Royalty and Specialist Protection (RaSP) arm of the Met allegedly advised her not to, The Times reports. The same officer is said to have told the Duchess: "Leave it with us, we'll investigate it."
At the time, Meghan was under fire for severing ties with her father, who had not been invited to her wedding with Harry in May 2018. Now the force is said to be trying to identify and locate the officer in question.
Allegations Kept From Senior Officials
Senior royal aides are said to have been left in the dark about the serious allegations, which took place abroad. Met Police's chief at the time, Cressida Dick, and her assistant commissioner, Neil Basu, were also kept in the dark, The Times reports. A source claimed that the RaSP officer failed to understand the magnitude of the allegations and failed to refer the letter to their seniors.
The Met Police has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) over the matter. The force declined to comment at this stage when approached by Metro.
Meghan's Statement and Further Accusations
The Duchess described the accusations against her dad as "troubling and disturbing" in a statement released after information about the letter emerged last week. The 45-year-old said the decision to distance her family and children, Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, was made to "protect them." Mr Markle has never met his two grandchildren.
Thomas Markle Jr, Mr Markle's son and Meghan's estranged stepbrother, had been caring for their ailing dad when he discovered the alleged child sex abuse material in his home in Cebu City in the Philippines, and reported it to the police. Images allegedly include a 15-minute video showing children believed to be no older than 10 or 11. Markle Junior said he found "hundreds, if not thousands" of indecent images and videos. Mr Markle, who is in a nursing home in Florida after the amputation of his leg last year, has denied possessing the images.
Further accusations against him have come to light after a stash of photos of naked Asian women stored in a unit in Rosarito, Mexico, allegedly rented by Mr Markle since 2017. He has denied the further claims, telling the Daily Mail: "I had no storage units in Rosarito!" A Daily Mail reporter was given access to the unit after Mr Markle is said to have failed to pay the rent for the unit in the past two years. Materials stored in the unit allegedly contained suspected voyeuristic material of 35mm negatives of children on a beach, books including one titled Forbidden Sexual Behaviour, and "Dark Web" written on a paper next to several URLs. Hours after the contents were reported to authorities, sex crime investigators from Mexico's Guardia Nacional arrived at the storage unit and took boxes of material away.
