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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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Meghan Markle has said she is "deeply distressed" by reports that her father, Thomas Markle Sr., is being investigated over child sex abuse images and that prior allegations against him were the reason she kept him from having contact with her children.
The Sun reported on Thursday that Markle Sr., 82, is alleged to have kept the images at his home in the Philippines and left them behind when he returned to the United States earlier this year. The allegations have not been proven and he has not been charged with any offense.
"I am deeply distressed at the news that has come to light in the last 24 hours, and my thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed," the Duchess of Sussex said in a statement provided to Newsweek.
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Meghan returned to the United Kingdom with Prince Harry and their two children, 7-year-old Prince Archie and 5-year-old Princess Lilibet, in August after spending six years in the United States after the couple quit royal duties in 2020.
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The Duchess said that a letter had been sent to the Metropolitan Police and Royalty and Specialist Protection in 2018 that was later shared with her. "It made troubling and disturbing allegations against my father and I was given assurances that these were being investigated," she said.
She added that the allegations prompted her decision to maintain distance from her father and not allow him contact with her children.
"I hope it can now be understood that, despite certain media publications' distortion over the years, any distance from my father and my choice to not allow him to have contact with our children, was for one reason: to protect them," she said.
"I trusted that the authorities were doing the same for other families. Although the breadth of what has now been uncovered is more sickening than one could ever imagine, my sincerest hope is that justice will be fully served and that the priority remains the safety and protection of innocent children."
Thomas Markle Jr, 60, told the newspaper that he reported his father to police after discovering the images at his former home in Cebu.
"When I found this material, I was horrified and I had no option but to report my dad," he said. "I have supported, cared for him and helped him for years—but that stops now. I won't speak to my father ever again unless I'm called to give evidence against him."
Samantha Markle, Meghan's half-sister, told the Daily Mail that her brother's allegations had "no merit in them whatsoever," and accused him of setting their father up.
"There is no merit in these disgusting allegations whatsoever and my brother is disgusting for making them up," Samantha Markle, who is her father's primary caregiver, said. "He wants to destroy our dad. Shame on him."
She said the computers on which the child sex abuse images were allegedly found were stored in the basement of a building in the Philippines, and her father had no access to them for two years.
"Who knows who could have had access to them? I don't believe any of it. Anyone could have set dad up," she added.
Samantha Markle and Thomas Markle Jr. are Markle Sr.'s children from his first marriage to Roslyn Loveless. They divorced in 1975. He later married Doria Ragland in 1979, and Meghan was born in 1981. The couple later divorced in 1987.
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Meghan's Estrangement From Father
Meghan has been estranged from her father—a former lighting and photography director—since 2018. Her father has not met her husband, Prince Harry, or their children, Archie and Lilibet.
Markle Sr. did not attend Meghan's wedding to Prince Harry in 2018 after saying he had suffered a heart attack days before the ceremony. His decision not to attend came after it emerged that he had staged paparazzi photographs that were reportedly sold to media outlets ahead of the royal wedding.
In 2020, lawyers for Meghan accused the The Mail on Sunday newspaper of humiliating her father and said he had missed her wedding because of "public shaming." Her lawyers claimed it was the article in the newspaper revealing that her father had staged paparazzi pictures for money that led to him missing her wedding.
In December last year, Meghan sent her father a letter while he was in hospital in the Philippines after he gave an interview saying he did not want to die while distanced from his daughter, and wished to meet Prince Harry and his grandchildren.
A spokesperson for Megan said at the time that a letter from Meghan was "safely in his hands." The spokesperson also criticized her father's ongoing relationship with the media.
"Given that a Daily Mail reporter has remained at her father's bedside throughout, broadcasting each interaction and breaching clear ethical boundaries, it has been exceedingly difficult for the Duchess to contact her father privately, despite her efforts over the past several days," the spokesperson told Newsweek in a statement.
"With the support of reliable and trusted contacts, her correspondence is now safely in his hands."
Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, a professor of journalism, media and culture at Cardiff University, told Newsweek: "Meghan Markle's estranged father has long been tabloid fodder in the UK, where any scandalous gossip about the royal family makes headlines.
"These fresh allegations about her father will be unwelcome news for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as they seek to re-establish themselves in the UK, in a context where everything that's said and done by those around them is subject to overwhelming media scrutiny."
Pauline Maclaran, a professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, who co-authored "Royal Fever: The British Monarchy in Consumer Culture," told Newsweek: "I think these allegations against her father will certainly be extremely upsetting for Meghan. On the other hand, I think they will also help her gain a certain amount of public sympathy at a time when that has seemed in short supply in the UK. Her distancing from her father now seems vindicated and certainly changes the narrative about her being heartless towards him."
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