Police failed to notify royals of abuse letter

The Metropolitan Police confirmed that it shared a handwritten letter containing serious child sex abuse claims against Thomas Markle with Meghan Markle in January 2019, but failed to notify senior leadership. The letter was written by Markle’s first wife, Roslyn Loveless, who died in 2024. It accused Markle of regularly traveling to the Philippines and Thailand, stating that 12-year-olds were legal there. The force told The Times that it gave the document to Meghan and Prince Harry for their awareness, yet details never reached the top of the command structure.

Meghan, who is 45, reportedly wanted to go public with the allegations after receiving the letter. An officer from the Royalty and Specialist Protection unit of the Met is said to have advised her against doing so. The officer allegedly told the Duchess to leave the matter with the police and promised an investigation. At the time, Meghan was facing public scrutiny after severing ties with her father, who had not been invited to her wedding in May 2018.

The Metropolitan Police is currently attempting to identify and locate that specific officer. Senior royal aides were unaware of the allegations, which concerned crimes committed abroad. Cressida Dick, the Met’s chief at the time, and assistant commissioner Neil Basu were also kept in the dark. A source stated that the officer did not grasp the severity of the claims and did not refer the letter to supervisors.

The Met has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct regarding the mishandling of the letter. The force declined to comment when approached for further details. In a statement released last week, Meghan described the accusations as troubling and disturbing. She said the decision to distance her family, including her children Archie and Lilibet, was made to protect them. Thomas Markle has never met his two grandchildren.

Thomas Markle Jr., Meghan’s estranged stepbrother, discovered the alleged child sex abuse material in his father’s home in Cebu City, Philippines. He reported the findings to local police. Markle Jr. said he found hundreds, if not thousands, of indecent images and videos. The materials included a 15-minute video showing children believed to be no older than 10 or 11. Thomas Markle is now in a nursing home in Florida following the amputation of his leg last year. He has denied possessing the images.

Additional accusations emerged after a stash of photos was found in a storage unit in Rosarito, Mexico. The unit was allegedly rented by Thomas Markle since 2017. He denied the claims, telling the Daily Mail that he had no storage units in that location. A reporter was given access to the unit after Markle failed to pay rent for two years. The materials included suspected voyeuristic 35mm negatives of children on a beach and books such as Forbidden Sexual Behaviour. A paper next to several URLs had the words Dark Web written on it. Sex crime investigators from Mexico’s Guardia Nacional arrived hours after the contents were reported and took boxes of material away.