Key takeaways:
- The Metropolitan Police received a letter alleging wrongdoing outside the U.K. in January 2019 but did not share its contents with other law enforcement agencies.
- Philippine authorities are investigating allegations involving Thomas Markle, who denies possessing child sexual abuse images.
- Meghan said she had been told of allegations about her father and kept her children away from him to protect them.
London’s Metropolitan Police are reviewing their handling of a 2019 letter alleging wrongdoing by Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex’s father, after confirming they did not share its contents with other law enforcement agencies. Thomas Markle, 82, denies allegations that he possessed images of child sexual abuse, which authorities in the Philippines are now investigating.
The police force said Saturday that it received a letter in January 2019 containing “a number of claims about alleged offending outside the United Kingdom.” It was sent to a police protection unit because of concerns about the duchess’s security, then passed to the office of Meghan and her husband, Prince Harry, for their awareness.
“The details of the allegations in the letter were not shared with other law enforcement agencies,” the Metropolitan Police said. The force did not say whether it investigated or took other action. It is considering whether to refer its handling of the matter to the United Kingdom’s Independent Office for Police Conduct.
Meghan said Friday that she was “deeply distressed” by the allegations. She said she had been told in 2018 of “disturbing allegations” about her father and had received assurances they were being investigated. Asked about the difference between her account and the police date of January 2019, her spokesperson told NBC News she “may have been mistaken by a few months.”
“The breadth of what has now been uncovered is more sickening than one could ever imagine,” Meghan said. “My thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed.” She said she had kept her children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, away from her father “for one reason: to protect them.”
The BBC reported that Meghan wrote to her father in 2025, while he was hospitalized in the Philippines after a leg amputation, telling him that she and authorities knew of claims that he had abused young girls. According to the BBC, she told him he would never meet her children and that she would not contact him again. Meghan and her father have been estranged since 2018, when he did not attend her wedding to Harry.
The Sun first reported the latest allegations Thursday, saying Meghan’s half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr., told police he had found “hundreds, if not thousands” of child sexual abuse images in boxes at their father’s former home. The BBC reported that the half-brother was understood to have contacted the FBI in July.
The Philippines’ justice department confirmed that the matter is under investigation but declined to give details. The BBC reported that the country’s anti-human trafficking and child sexual exploitation task force is investigating and that Interior Minister Jonvic Remulla said police had secured Markle’s computer for a digital forensic examination.
Markle called the allegations “sick lies” in a statement to the Daily Mail. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, he acknowledged paying for sex in the Philippines but denied sleeping with underage girls or possessing child abuse images, the BBC reported. His daughter Samantha Markle also rejected her brother’s allegations, telling the Daily Mail there was “no merit” to them.
The FBI said it was aware of the allegations and would support Philippine authorities as appropriate. It said it would also investigate any related allegations of violations of U.S. federal law.
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