Thomas Markle Sr, 82, father of the Duchess of Sussex, has been moved to a specialist dementia care facility in Florida amid an investigation into allegations he possessed child sex abuse images, The Sun reported on Friday. The move raises concerns that the FBI may be unable to interview the 82-year-old due to legal barriers to interrogating suspects with cognitive issues in care homes.
The allegations stem from material his son Thomas Markle Jr handed to Philippine and FBI authorities last month. Thomas Markle Jr said he found a haul of alleged child abuse images in his father's belongings in Cebu City. During a raid on Friday, Mexican police reportedly discovered a second hoard of materials in a storage unit Mr Markle rented near his former home in Rosarito, Mexico.
The Metropolitan Police is facing investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct for its handling of a letter sent to the force in 2019 by Thomas Markle's first wife, Roslyn Loveless. The handwritten letter was passed to the Duchess of Sussex in January 2019 and contained troubling allegations about her father. The Met admitted it never shared the letter's details with other law enforcement agencies, overseas or domestic. The IOPC investigation will examine why the force did not pass on the allegations at the time.
Meghan was left deeply distressed by the allegations and revealed she was sent the letter via the Metropolitan Police and Royalty and Specialist Protection seven years ago. She said she was given assurances the allegations were being investigated. In her final letter to her father, Meghan wrote that she knew he was an abuser and that he would never see his grandchildren, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
Thomas Markle Sr has strongly denied all allegations, calling them 'sick lies'. He has admitted to paying for sex in the Philippines but denied ever possessing child abuse imagery. When Markle had his leg amputated in the Philippines last year, he made pleas for the Duchess to contact him, saying he did not want to die while they were still estranged. A spokesperson for the Duchess confirmed at the time she had 'reached out to her father'.
Authorities in the Philippines have obtained a warrant to examine four boxes of material -- including computers, phones, hard drives and old videotapes -- seized from Markle's former home and handed to police by Thomas Markle Jr last week. Thomas Markle Sr remains estranged from his daughter Meghan, who has not spoken to him since the run-up to her 2018 wedding.
