The Metropolitan Police reportedly lost a letter containing allegations of child sexual abuse against Thomas Markle and later asked the Duchess of Sussex whether she had retained a copy.
Mr Markle’s former wife, Roslyn Loveless, is understood to have sent the letter to the force in January 2019. Its contents were subsequently shared with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Authorities in the Philippines are examining a collection of child sexual abuse images allegedly linked to Meghan Markle’s 82-year-old father, who is recovering in Florida after having a leg amputated. Mr Markle denies the allegations.
Ms Loveless, who died two years ago and divorced Mr Markle in 1975, reportedly wrote: ‘I questioned Thomas Sr. He denied the accusation but stated that he went to the Philippines and Thailand because 12-year-olds are legal there.’
According to the Telegraph, she also claimed that Mr Markle posed a potential threat to Prince Harry, Meghan and the Duchess’s mother.
Ms Loveless allegedly said the Met’s awareness of her former husband’s purported ‘unsavoury background’ would be ‘useful for security and threat assessments in the UK’.
The force has since faced claims that it not only misplaced the letter but also failed to act on information it had received several years earlier.
The Times reported that officers eventually asked the Duchess whether she had a copy of the document. She handed it over at their request.
Meghan Markle is pictured with her father, Thomas, in 2011. He is facing allegations of child sexual abuse, which he denies
Exclusive Mail on Sunday photographs show Mr Markle in a Florida hospital after undergoing a leg amputation earlier this year
Mr Markle’s former wife, Roslyn Loveless, is understood to have sent the Met a 2019 letter containing allegations against him
The reported loss of the letter is the latest alleged failure involving the Met’s handling of claims concerning Mr Markle, including criticism that the information was not passed to the FBI.
The force is understood to be considering whether to refer its handling of the document to a police watchdog.
Jim Gamble, a former head of the National Crime Agency’s child exploitation unit, accused Scotland Yard of potentially allowing abuse to continue for years if the allegations are ultimately substantiated.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: ‘If it turns out through the investigation ongoing in the Philippines and with the FBI that an individual is ultimately held to account for those offences, then there’s seven years during which children will have potentially continued to suffer abuse.’
He questioned why the Met considered the allegations credible enough to share with the Duchess of Sussex, but apparently did not pass them to other law-enforcement agencies.
‘I would have expected them to prioritise an assessment with regard to the safeguarding and child protection issues that seem to have been included in [the letter],’ he said.
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‘If you get information that comes to you about someone from a foreign jurisdiction who represents a threat to children, there’s a well-worn path and generally you’d expect a UK police force to share that information.’
‘I would have expected the Metropolitan Police to have gone to the FBI to say, “Look, this isn’t proven, it’s an allegation, you might want to look at it.” Because in America, they may have more information that could corroborate it.’
‘It also should have gone to the National Crime Agency. They have an international network that connects with police services, not just in the likes of America, but in the Philippines, in Thailand and in Mexico.’
Mr Gamble said an independent investigation into the force was ‘absolutely necessary’.
Mr Markle denies all the allegations. Authorities in the Philippines are investigating the claims
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are pictured in Nottingham
‘There’s a serious question to be asked about the process here,’ he said. ‘It’s not just about administration, it’s about children having an extended exposure to an individual, if it’s proven, who represented a risk.’
The letter received by the Met in 2019 is said to have been written by Ms Loveless, the mother of the Duchess of Sussex’s half-siblings, Samantha and Thomas.
Samantha, 61, has said that, if her mother did send the letter, it was motivated by ‘hatred and bitterness’. She has also described her mother as an alcoholic and ‘not credible’. Mr Markle and Ms Loveless divorced in 1975, four years before he met Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland.
Meghan and her father have been estranged since at least 2018, when she married Prince Harry. Their relationship deteriorated after he admitted staging paparazzi photographs of himself before the wedding.
The Duchess wrote to him last December after he had his leg amputated in the Philippines. She allegedly told him that he posed a risk to children and would never be permitted to meet his grandchildren, Archie and Lilibet.
On Friday, Philippine police said they were investigating claims that Mr Markle possessed ‘hundreds, if not thousands’ of child sexual abuse images, including one allegedly showing him having sex with an underage girl.
Philippines Interior Minister Jonvic Remulla said Mr Markle appeared to be ‘a possible sex offender of the grossest kind’.
Mr Markle has denied wrongdoing. He has acknowledged paying for sex in the Philippines but insists the women involved were adults.
The Daily Mail contacted the Metropolitan Police and representatives for Meghan Markle for comment.
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