The Duchess of Sussex is said to be hoping for a ‘thorough investigation’ into her estranged father after he was charged with possessing child abuse images.
A close friend has claimed Meghan, 45, wants ‘justice’ for victims of Thomas Markle Sr’s alleged crimes, which it is claimed show him abusing children.
It comes after the 82-year-old, who vehemently denies wrongdoing, was released on house arrest after the FBI uncovered an alleged stash of child pornography inside his Los Angeles storage units.
He was taken into custody when federal agents swooped in on his Maravida Senior Living care home in Lakeland, Florida, on Friday morning after the alleged materials were discovered in two units he had been renting for nearly two decades.
The former Hollywood lighting director, whose arrest was first reported by the Daily Mail, was charged with one count of possession of child pornography.
Markle, who didn’t enter a plea during an initial court hearing, was released on bond on Friday afternoon and ordered to live under house arrest at his care home.
Exclusive Daily Mail photos captured the moment Markle, who is wheelchair-bound following a leg amputation in the Philippines last year, was escorted from the care home in handcuffs shortly after 9am local time after police surrounded the property.
Now, a close friend of Meghan claims the Duchess wants justice to be delivered for her father’s alleged victims, it has been reported.
Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, 45, is pictured here with her father Thomas Markle Sr, 82, before the pair became estranged
Thomas Sr is pictured after he was arrested over allegations of possession of child porn in LA
The Duchess and her husband Harry, the Duke of Sussex, were told what the FBI had found stashed inside her father’s LA storage units on Friday
They told The Sun: ‘It is her sincerest hope that a full and thorough investigation will now help deliver justice for the victims.’
Meghan and her husband, Prince Harry, 42, were told what the FBI had found stashed inside her father’s LA storage units as he was wheeled into court on Friday.
The Daily Mail has approached the Sussexes for comment.
Mr Markle had not been to either lock-up in years but has continued to rent them for £520 per month.
His arrest came just two weeks after his son, Meghan’s brother Thomas Markle Jr, 60, reported him to police in the Philippines.
Thomas Jr had lived in the Philippines before his father moved back to the US after a blood clot forced him to have his leg amputated last December.
The 60-year-old reported his father to police after discovering the material amongst his father’s abandoned belongings in the city of Cebu.
He is then reported to have informed the FBI of the material being stored by his father in LA.
Among the stash of alleged child pornography, Thomas Sr held images that are said to be of him ‘abusing pre-pubescent girls’
A close friend of Meghan has claimed the Duchess hopes for a ‘thorough investigation’ into her father
A security guard waits outside an assisted living facility in Lakeland, Florida, US, November 6, 2026, before the arrival of Thomas Markle Sr, after he was charged with one count of possession of child pornography
The evidence found by US law enforcement allegedly includes film negatives and books that ‘contain child pornography’.
The FBI used a special device to convert the negatives into colour digital photographs – among them, it is claimed, are images of Thomas Sr allegedly abusing a naked ‘pre-pubescent girl’.
In a sworn affidavit published on Thursday, an FBI agent said one of the negatives showed ‘an image of an adult man wearing a white button-down shirt and blue jeans sitting on a white surface’.
They said: ‘A nude pre-pubescent girl is sitting on the adult man’s lap so that her back is against his left chest.’
The agent added that the man is touching the child while engaging in an act of child abuse.
‘Based on my training and experience, the girl pictured in image one is pre-pubescent,’ said the agent.
‘The child’s nudity, pose, and the adult man’s actions appear designed to elicit a sexual response from the viewer.’
Another image shows an ‘adult man’ with his arm ‘wrapped around the girl’s hips and he appears to be looking down at her nude body’.
A third photo shows a naked child sitting on a bed while another partially clothed girl is behind her.
FBI agents have spoken to witnesses to identify the adult in the images and a source believed to have known Thomas Sr since the 1970s reportedly identified him.
As he was arrested, Mr Markle cut a desperate figure as he scowled and stared around in disbelief while agents loaded him into a waiting ambulance.
When a Daily Mail reporter asked him if he was a paedophile, the 82-year-old responded ‘no’ in a weak voice but remained silent when asked if he had ever collected child pornography.
The silver-haired retiree was still wearing the same scruffy T-shirt and black sweatpants when he was wheeled into court with his hands visibly trembling on Friday afternoon for his initial hearing.
He listened on as Judge Lindsay Griffin summarised the allegations levelled against him and described how the criminal complaint alleged he was depicted in two of the images.
Asked if he understood, Markle winced and said ‘yes’ in a low voice.
His arrest came just days after the Daily Mail alerted US police to a cache of child pornography found inside the storage unit Markle had rented near his former home in Rosarito, Mexico.
Thomas Sr has vehemently denied wrongdoing and when asked by a Daily Mail reporter whether he was a paedophile, replied ‘no’
Separately, police in the Philippines are also said to be ‘very close’ to bringing formal charges against Markle after child abuse images were also allegedly found at his former home there last month.
‘Mr Markle allegedly targeted innocent children and sought to steal their innocence through his criminal actions,’ FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement.
‘Working with our Justice Department partners, our agents moved quickly, identified and located the explicit material, and arrested Mr Markle in Florida.’
After years living abroad, Markle moved to the Sunshine State in the spring. He had recently relocated to a senior-living home specialising in dementia care, which costs an estimated $3,900 (£2,900) per month, in the lead up to his arrest.
The multinational criminal investigation into Thomas Sr has been underway ever since child pornography was allegedly uncovered in the two locations where he has spent much of his retirement.
During the California raid, FBI agents seized approximately 78 items from the two units – including slides, film negatives and books that contained suspected child porn, court documents state.
Among the negatives developed by investigators were photos, which seemed to have been taken several decades ago, which court papers claim are of Markle sexually abusing young girls at a Philippines motel.
Others allegedly showed Markle with children in various stages of undress in what the FBI now believes to be the Anahaw Lodge motel, the complaint states.
Markle had been renting the LA storage units since 2008 and made an autopay payment as recently as last month, according to a criminal complaint.
‘These allegations are extremely serious, and we will prosecute Mr Markle to the fullest extent of federal law,’ First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said.
News of the raid in Los Angeles comes after Mexican police also raided a storage space in Rosarito last weekend – just one day after the Daily Mail alerted the FBI to the find.
In that instance, Guardia Nacional officers who identified themselves as state sex crimes investigators were spotted entering the 5ft by 10ft vault, three miles from Markle’s former home in the Mexican beach resort town.
The team – comprising forensic computing experts, a crime scene investigator and officials from the Baja state attorney general’s office – could be seen peering in with a flashlight and rummaging through the scruffy boxes.
One agent visibly recoiled and declared ‘Ay cabron’ – a Spanish phrase that can mean ‘holy crap’ or ‘oh, damn’ – while viewing the material, according to an onlooker.
A copy of the search warrant obtained by the Daily Mail revealed investigators were authorised by a judge to look for ‘evidence consisting of child sexual abuse material’ and ‘the alleged commission of the crime of human trafficking in its aggravated form’.
They itemised and seized material including a computer, thumb drives, VHS tapes and a stack of magazines before closing up and sealing the unit with an official seizure notice, a source said.
The raid on Baja Storage, a gated storage depot ten miles south of the US border, came after the Daily Mail discovered photos of naked Asian females and magazines showing children being sexually abused stashed inside Unit 22.
In the aftermath of the raid, Markle’s unit was locked and plastered with Mexican Guardia Nacional signs reading ‘Aseguramiento de inmuebles’ – ‘seizure of property’ – indicating that the items within had been seized.
Our reporting team came across the storage space while investigating Markle’s former life in the gated ex-pat community of San Antonio del Mar.
Unit 22 had been rented to the Duchess of Sussex’s estranged father back in 2017 but he fell behind on the payments two years ago and moved to the Philippines in early 2025 without emptying it.
The business’s staff and owner say they knew nothing about the cache and were disgusted by its discovery.
Markle, for his part, has vehemently denied wrongdoing after news of his alleged child-porn cache first exploded into public view, telling the Daily Mail on Saturday: ‘I had no storage units in Rosarito!’
In addition to innocent family mementoes, letters and photos found inside the unit, kept separately there were black-and-white prints of naked Asian females – some who appear to be conspicuously young – as well as books and magazines sexualizing children as ‘Lolitas’.
There were also strips of 35mm negatives depicting voyeuristic images of kids on a beach and dusty VHS tapes with titles including ‘Boys – Brother and Sister – Russian XX’ and ‘Manila Nites’.
The lockup also contained old computers, hard drives and a paper plate with the words ‘DARK WEB’ scribbled in red ink alongside various URLs. It is not known what is on the hard drives or video tapes.
The Daily Mail’s tip-off prompted an immediate investigation involving US and Mexican officials.
