The Duchess of Sussex has withdrawn from a planned speech on online child safety following her father’s arrest, saying she is not emotionally strong enough to address the public at present.
Meghan, 45, and Prince Harry, 42, had been due to speak at the opening of the Lost Screen Memorial at the European Parliament in Brussels tomorrow.
The duchess was expected to introduce her husband and highlight the need to protect and support vulnerable children.
However, Meghan has cancelled her address after her father, Thomas Markle Snr, 82, was arrested by the FBI last week and charged with possessing child abuse images.
‘She’s just not emotionally strong enough to undertake any public speaking right now,’ a source told The Telegraph.
Prince Harry is still expected to deliver his speech in Belgium. He is understood to hope that his remarks will be viewed in the context of the arrest of his father-in-law, whom he has never met.
Meghan will nevertheless attend the event, marking her first public appearance since the allegations emerged last month.
Following Harry’s speech, the Sussexes are expected to walk through the memorial, which commemorates children who died after experiencing harm online.
The installation features 50 phones, each displaying an image of a child who died after being exposed to harmful social media.
Meghan and Prince Harry had been due to speak at the opening of the Lost Screen Memorial at the European Parliament in Brussels tomorrow
The Duchess of Sussex’s estranged father, Thomas Markle, 82, was arrested by the FBI in Florida on Friday and accused of possessing child abuse material
The duke will later take part in a panel discussion, Beyond Promises: Building A Digital Future That Works For Children, focused on protecting children online.
In May, Meghan met parents grieving the loss of children to online harm during a visit to the Lost Screen Memorial in Switzerland.
‘Children must be safe by design, not safe by chance,’ she said at the ceremony.
The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for the Sussexes for comment.
Following his release on bail, Meghan’s father will be subject to home detention and electronic monitoring after appearing in a US court accused of possessing child sexual abuse material, including images allegedly showing him with underage girls.
The judge also imposed travel restrictions on Markle, who did not enter a plea during the hearing in Tampa, Florida.
According to the US justice department, his next court appearance in California is not expected for at least several weeks.
Markle was arrested by FBI agents on Friday after they seized material from two Los Angeles storage units he had rented for almost two decades.
He faces one charge of possessing child sexual abuse images.
The arrest came days after the Daily Mail alerted federal authorities to a cache of alleged child abuse material found in a storage unit Markle had rented near his former home in Rosarito, Mexico.
Markle previously told the Daily Mail, ‘I had no storage units in Rosarito!’ He has denied wrongdoing in connection with the alleged discovery in the Philippines.
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He came under investigation after his son, Thomas Markle Jnr, reported him to police in the Philippines and to the FBI last month. His son allegedly found illegal images among his father’s belongings in Cebu City.
Acting under warrants, FBI agents searched the units registered to Markle. He had rented them since 2008, and automatic payments for both had most recently been made last month.
Agents reportedly seized around 78 items, including slides, film negatives and books containing suspected child sexual abuse material.
Two of the images allegedly show an adult man whom a witness ‘positively identified’ as Markle with a nude young girl.
According to court documents, the man in one image ‘appears to be in the age range of 30s to 40s’. Given that Markle is now 82, this would suggest the alleged abuse dates back decades.
The Duchess of Sussex said she was ‘deeply distressed’ by allegations involving her father in the Philippines. She has not commented on developments in Mexico since they emerged last week
The Mail’s discovery of Markle’s storage unit in Mexico last week, pictured above, and its immediate alert to the FBI contributed to the investigation’s latest development
A third image allegedly depicts a nude young girl in a room that appears to be inside a Philippine motel.
Other photographs are alleged to show Markle with children at various stages of undress.
If convicted, Markle could face a minimum of 20 years in federal prison.
First assistant US attorney Bill Essayli said: ‘Markle is accused of possessing child sexual abuse material, including photographs depicting himself with minor girls.
‘These allegations are extremely serious, and we will prosecute Markle to the fullest extent of federal law.’
FBI director Kash Patel said: ‘Markle allegedly targeted innocent children and sought to steal their innocence through his criminal actions.
‘Working with our Justice Department partners, our agents moved quickly, identified and located the explicit material, and arrested Markle in Florida.
‘The FBI will use every resource at its disposal to protect innocent children. Any predator who targets children will have no safe haven in this country or anywhere else they attempt to hide.’
Markle, who had been living in a dementia care home in the US, has acknowledged paying for sex in the Philippines but denied ever possessing child abuse imagery.
Meghan, who moved back to the UK with Harry in August, said she was ‘deeply distressed’ by the allegations involving her father. She has been estranged from him since the period leading up to her 2018 wedding.
She said she received a letter through the Metropolitan Police and Royalty and Specialist Protection in 2019 containing ‘troubling and disturbing allegations’ about her father. She was assured that the claims were being investigated.
The Metropolitan Police has acknowledged that it did not share the details with other law enforcement agencies. The police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, is now investigating the force’s handling of the matter.
Sources said the duchess had wanted to ‘speak out’ immediately after reading the letter, but police advised her not to do so.
When former television lighting director Markle had his leg amputated in the Philippines last year, he appealed to the duchess to contact him.
Meghan is understood to have sent him a final letter saying she knew he was an abuser and that he would never meet his grandchildren, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.