Met Police reviewed 2019 letter with claims on Meghan's father

The Metropolitan Police has confirmed that in January 2019 it received a letter containing a number of claims about alleged offending outside the United Kingdom relating to the father of the Duchess of Sussex. The letter was sent to the force’s Protection Command to raise concerns about the Duchess’s security. It was reviewed, then passed to the office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for their awareness. Crucially, the details of the allegations were not shared with other law enforcement agencies.

The confirmation followed reporting by the Sun, which first carried the claims and later said the letter made direct allegations of child sex abuse against Thomas Markle, 82. Markle, who is based in the US, denies possessing any such images.

Scotland Yard set out the work behind the confirmation in a statement. “Following a thorough review of Met Police systems and records, we have confirmed that in January 2019, we received a letter containing a number of claims about alleged offending outside the United Kingdom.” It added that the letter was reviewed and a decision was made that it should be passed to the office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for their awareness.

The force has also opened its own scrutiny of how the matter was handled. “The MPS is reviewing the handling of this matter in 2019 and considering whether a referral to the IOPC is necessary to review our approach,” the statement said. That consideration of a referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct places the focus squarely on whether the internal processes followed at the time, including the decision not to share the allegations with other agencies, met the required standards.

Questions of timing have surrounded the letter. Meghan said on Friday that she was informed about “disturbing allegations” about her estranged father in 2018, while the Met has dated the letter to January 2019. Responding on Saturday, a spokesman for the duchess said “any discrepancy of a few months” was “an understandable consequence of that passage of time”.

Meanwhile, the operational picture now spans multiple jurisdictions. Authorities in the Philippines have confirmed they are investigating the allegations. The BBC was told on Friday that the matter was being examined by an anti-human trafficking and child sexual exploitation task force. Separately, Philippines Interior Minister Jonvic Remulla said national police had secured Markle’s computer and would carry out a digital forensic examination.

The allegations surfaced after Meghan’s half-brother, Thomas Markle Jnr, claimed he found a stash of images belonging to his father at his former Philippines home, the Sun reported. He is said to have told police he discovered child abuse videos and pictures among the items. He is understood to have contacted the FBI in July.

Markle moved to the Philippines last year after a series of strokes. He is reportedly now living in a Florida rehabilitation centre, learning to walk again after having a leg amputated in 2025.

In a statement released on Friday, Meghan said that when she received the information of the claims against her father she was “given assurance that these were being investigated”. She said she hoped it could be understood why she had kept her distance from her father and did “not allow him to have contact with our children”.

Meghan is the only daughter of Markle and her mother, Doria Ragland. Markle pulled out of attending Meghan and Harry’s wedding in 2018, citing ill health, and the pair became estranged. The duke and duchess moved to the US in 2020 after stepping down as working royals, and they returned to the UK with their children this year after six years away.

For now, the practical questions remain open: whether the Met’s handling of the 2019 letter warrants a formal referral to the IOPC, and how the forensic work under way in the Philippines progresses.