The Metropolitan Police reportedly lost a letter alleging child sex offences involving Thomas Markle and later asked the Duchess of Sussex whether she had retained a copy.
Roslyn Loveless, Mr Markle’s former wife, 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 large collection of child abuse images allegedly linked to Meghan Markle’s 82-year-old father. Mr Markle, who is now in Florida following the amputation of his leg, denies the allegations.
Ms Loveless, who died two years ago after divorcing Mr Markle in 1975, reportedly wrote that she had challenged him over the claims. According to the letter, he denied them but allegedly said he travelled to the Philippines and Thailand because “12-year-olds are legal there.”
The Telegraph reported that Ms Loveless also claimed Mr Markle posed a potential danger to Prince Harry, Meghan and the Duchess’s mother.
She is further alleged to have told police that information about her former husband’s purportedly “unsavoury background” would be relevant to security and threat assessments in the UK.
The latest claims suggest that the force not only misplaced the letter but also failed to pursue a warning it had received years earlier.
According to The Times, officers eventually asked the Duchess of Sussex whether she had a copy. Meghan is understood to have provided the document at their request.
Meghan Markle pictured with her father Thomas in 2011, before allegations of child sex abuse were made against him
Images obtained exclusively by the Mail on Sunday 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 Police a 2019 letter containing allegations of child sex abuse
The reported loss of the letter adds to a number of alleged failings in the Met’s handling of claims involving Mr Markle, including an apparent failure to share the information with the FBI.
The force is understood to be considering whether its handling of the document should be referred to a police watchdog for review.
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 because of the way the matter was handled.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said that if ongoing investigations by authorities in the Philippines and the FBI ultimately lead to someone being held responsible, children may have remained at risk during the seven years since the allegations emerged.
Mr Gamble questioned why the Met considered the claims credible enough to raise with the Duchess of Sussex, yet apparently did not pass the information to other relevant law enforcement agencies.
“I would have expected them to prioritise an assessment focused on the safeguarding and child protection concerns that appear to have been raised in the letter,” he said.
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“When information is received about someone from another country who may pose a threat to children, there is an established process. You would generally expect a UK police force to share that intelligence.
“I would have expected the Metropolitan Police to contact the FBI and say: ‘This has not been proven and remains an allegation, but it may warrant investigation.’ US authorities could have had additional information capable of supporting or disproving the claims.
“The information should also have been sent to the National Crime Agency, which has international links with police services in the United States, the Philippines, Thailand and Mexico.”
Mr Gamble added that an external investigation into the force is ‘absolutely necessary’.
Mr Markle denies all of the allegations against him. Authorities in the Philippines are currently investigating
Meghan 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.’
It’s claimed the letter received by the Met in 2019 was written by Ms Loveless, mother to the Duchess of Sussex’s half-siblings Samantha and Thomas.
Samantha, 61, has said that if her mother sent the letter, it was out of ‘hatred and bitterness’, accusing her of being 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 broke down after he admitted staging paparazzi photos of himself prior to the wedding.
The Duchess wrote to him last December after his leg was amputated in the Philippines, allegedly telling him he posed a risk to children and would never be allowed to meet his grandchildren, Archie and Lilibet.
On Friday, police in the Philippines revealed they were investigating Mr Markle over claims he had ‘hundreds, if not thousands’ of child sexual abuse images, including an image of himself allegedly having sex with an underage girl.
The Philippines’ interior minister Jonvic Remulla said Mr Markle appeared to be ‘a possible sex offender of the grossest kind’.
Mr Markle has denied any wrongdoing, admitting he paid for sex in the Philippines but insisting it was only with adult prostitutes.
The Daily Mail contacted the Metropolitan Police and Meghan Markle’s representatives for comment.
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