By CAROLINE GRAHAM, U.S. EDITOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
Meghan Markle today said she was ‘deeply distressed’ over ‘sickening’ allegations that her father has been caught possessing child sex images.
The Duchess of Sussex revealed claims against Thomas Markle Snr were passed to her in 2018 after a letter was sent to the Metropolitan Police‘s royal protection team.
Meghan also explained she had never allowed her father to meet her children Prince Archie, seven, and five-year-old Princess Lilibet ‘for one reason: to protect them’.
The Duchess, who moved back to Britain over the summer after six years in the US, has been estranged from Mr Markle since she married Prince Harry in 2018.
She said in a statement: ‘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.
‘In 2018, a letter was sent to the Metropolitan Police and Royalty and Specialist Protection. That letter was subsequently shared with me. It made troubling and disturbing allegations against my father and I was given assurances that these were being investigated.
‘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.
‘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.’
Before Meghan’s statement, Mr Markle had vehemently denied possessing child sex images, calling the accusations ‘sick lies’.
Mr Markle said allegations made by his son, Tom Jr, that he downloaded a huge stash of child sex abuse images onto computers and cellphones ‘is the worst thing anyone could accuse me of’.
Meghan’s 82-year-old father spoke exclusively to the Daily Mail from a rehab centre in Florida, where he is learning to walk with a prosthetic limb after his left leg was amputated below the knee last December following a massive blood clot.
The Duchess of Sussex on a visit to the Community Recording Studio in Nottingham last week
Meghan and her father Thomas have been estranged since 2018, the year she married Harry
Thomas Markle recovers after surgery in a hospital bed in the Philippines last December
Thomas Markle Sr, pictured with nurse Rio Canedo, 46, is now the subject of a child sex probe
He said: ‘I’m shocked, I’m hurt and I’m very upset that my son is making these accusations against me. I could never do what I’m being accused of. It’s the worst thing anyone could accuse me of.
‘This is bulls****. It’s just a bunch of lies. It’s sick. I have no idea why Tom is trying to destroy me with these lies.’
Meghan’s half-brother Tom Jr, 60, made the bombshell claims to The Sun saying he found ‘hundreds’ of child sex images stored on computers and a cellphone in four large storage boxes ‘left behind’ by Mr Markle when he moved back to the States from the Philippines earlier this year.
Mr Markle challenged his son’s account, claiming the computers had not been in his possession since he left Rosarito, Mexico, with his son in January 2025 and moved to the Philippines ‘for a fresh start’.
He said: ‘Those computers were boxed up in Mexico and put on a cargo ship which took months to get to the Philippines. I kept asking Tom for my computers but he wouldn’t give them to me.’
Mr Markle, who has been estranged from his youngest daughter since she married Prince Harry in 2018 and has never met his grandchildren Archie and Lilibet, said: ‘Tom told me they were in the basement of an apartment block we were living in. I could never understand why he wouldn’t give them to me.
‘I don’t know who had access to the computers. We moved to (two adjoining) houses in December 2025 and I was taken ill (with the blood clot) and I was in hospital and then a rehab centre.
‘Whenever I asked Tom to bring my computers to me he refused.’
Asked about a quote from a ‘source close to Meghan’ who reportedly told the Sun: ‘Now maybe people will finally understand why she has had nothing to do with her father since 2018’, Mr Markle replied: ‘I don’t believe that’.
Thomas Markle Jr, Meghan’s brother, claimed to have found the child-abuse material packed up in boxes at his father’s Philippines home
The allegations against Meghan’s father Thomas have sent shockwaves through the family
He said he and Meghan had a ‘great’ relationship until she met Prince Harry and he ‘stupidly’ posed for paparazzi pictures on the eve of their wedding.
Within days, he suffered two heart attacks and was unable to walk her down the aisle.
Mr Markle has been in declining health for years. He returned to the States for ongoing medical treatment in May and recently had a third stent inserted into his heart after doctors found it was operating at 30 per cent efficiency.
When he spoke to the Daily Mail, nurses at the rehab centre had just performed an electrocardiogram because his heart rate was worryingly high because of the stress of learning of his son’s accusations against him.
Tom Jr claimed he looked into four storage boxes containing his father’s possessions in July this year to find a cellphone for his fiancée Rose. When he opened one phone he was horrified to see a graphic child sex image.
Mr Markle said: ‘I have never downloaded anything like that in my life.’
Tom Jr later opened a computer and said he saw a screensaver with ‘hundreds’ of disturbing thumbnail images. He claimed he also saw a video of a young girl engaging in a sex act.
When asked directly by the Daily Mail: ‘Did you download porn onto your computers?’ Mr Markle replied: ‘Never. Never. Never. I have never done that.’
He said he would welcome a computer expert to ‘autopsy’ the computers (later clarifying he meant they could forensically examine the machines) to determine whether he was in possession of the computers when the alleged vile content was downloaded.
Samantha Markle (left) pictured with her father Thomas Snr and brother Thomas Jnr
‘These terrible lies are being made against me with no proof,’ he said. ‘How can you accuse a man of something like this with no proof?
‘I have not spoken to Tom in months. I don’t know where this has come from. I can only think he’s doing this to make money. I go between feeling very sad to feeling very angry.’
Mr Markle has had a turbulent relationship with Tom Jr, who left his home in Oregon in 2022 to move to Rosarito, Mexico, where Mr Markle retired after an award-winning career as a lighting director in Hollywood.
Mr Markle said: ‘Tom came to live with me after I had a stroke. I supported him financially. I’ve supported him financially for most of his life. That money stopped in July this year when a family member found he had been taking money from my account.’
Tom Jr made the first claims of finding the alleged child abuse images a few days later, both to the American FBI and to the US Center for Abused and Exploited Children.
This week, he took the material to local police in the city of Cebu in the Philippines in the company of a Sun journalist. Cebu Police have launched an official probe.
Mr Markle said: ‘I welcome an investigation because I didn’t do this. I’m scared because I don’t feel safe any more. People believe accusations, even if they are not true. This is the worst thing you can accuse someone of.
‘I would like to ask Tom, why? I have not spoken to my son in several months but our last conversation was friendly. He didn’t ask for money but if he had I probably would have given it to him like I always have in the past.’
Meghan with her father on the day of her marriage to her first husband Trevor Engelson in 2011
Mr Markle’s eldest daughter Samantha, 61, who is her father’s main caregiver in Florida, is ‘outraged’ by her brother’s accusations.
She and Tom Jr were the children of Mr Markle’s first marriage to Roslyn Loveless. After their divorce, he married Doria Ragland and Meghan was born in 1981.
Samantha accused her brother of ‘making up lies’ to make money.
She said: ‘There is no merit in these disgusting allegations whatsoever and my brother is disgusting for making them up. He wants to destroy our dad. Shame on him.
‘My brother first came out with these lies days after the cash from my dad was cut off. He has used dad as a cash cow for years and once the money stopped he made up the most outrageous lies he could to make money from the media.
‘Those computers were out of dad’s possession for two years. That leaves a lot of room for tampering. These are unsubstantiated allegations. Anyone could have been in contact with those computers over the past couple of years. Dad did not have access to these computers. Anyone could have set dad up.’
She accused her brother of nursing a ‘vendetta’ against their father saying: ‘Whenever Tom is short of cash he makes up lies and sells stories because it’s easy money. My brother has an eighth-grade education (meaning he left school at 14).
‘It’s very cruel of him to do this to dad when dad is so physically and mentally fragile.
‘Tom thinks dad never loved him enough. He was jealous dad had more money when Meghan came along and he thinks Meghan got everything. But dad did the best he could for all of us. He was very generous to Tom and I too.
‘There is a suggestion that Meghan knew about this. I can’t speak for Meghan but she publicly bragged at the UN and on her website Tig about what a wonderful father he is and she wouldn’t have done that if she suspected anything like this.
‘Tom has a history of lying about dad. He said my dad did cocaine with hookers in Thailand.
‘That was a lie for money too. He lies to get money. Tom has a history of drinking. He is doing this to get revenge.
‘For Tom to try and destroy dad this way is cruel beyond belief.’
Mr Markle said he is considering legal action but admitted: ‘I don’t know what I can do to defend myself? When someone accuses you of something like this it goes all over the world in seconds and some people will believe it forever. It’s devastating.
‘I’m angry, I’m hurt and I want the world to know these are terrible lies.’
