Thank you to @Cismyfatarse for posting the Times token, I’m putting some of the questions in the article here, because I think it’s good to have a pause and look back at everything. Good to see them starting to question in the press too!
Why was Meghan so sure that the allegations contained in the letter were true?
While there was no pictorial evidence attached to the letter, which was sent to the police and then passed to the office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, it is understood that the evidence within the letter was very compelling and came from someone who knew Thomas Markle Sr and the family well. It has since been reported that it was sent by his first wife, Roslyn Loveless, who died in 2024.
What is the date discrepancy?
Meghan said last week that she received the letter in 2018 after being passed it by the Metropolitan police.
In a later statement, however, the police said that they received it in January 2019.
It is acknowledged that Meghan may have possibly misremembered the precise date, whereas the police would have recorded it with a timestamp.
That said, it may have taken the police several months before they were able to confirm the correspondence in their archives.
What did the palace know?
The Metropolitan Police shared the information with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in early 2019 but not, it seems, with the wider royal household.
Buckingham Palace has declined to comment on the matter.
Why did the Met not pass on the allegations to other forces?
Scotland Yard said that the letter contained a number of claims about alleged offending outside the United Kingdom. A Met investigation was not launched. The force admitted it had not passed the letter on to authorities overseas.
The Met is now reviewing its handling of the matter and considering whether a referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is necessary.
If the force makes a referral, the watchdog may review its approach to the letter.
Why did Meghan still call herself a ‘daddy’s girl’?
Meghan wrote to her father last December when he had his leg amputated in the Philippines. The contents of the letter are unknown, but it is now understood that she was responding to his repeated complaints in the press that she did not care for her ill father. It is believed that she wrote to tell him that she did not want to speak to him as a result of the serious allegations against him. It was the last time she would be in touch with him.
It is not known why she continued to paint a positive image of him in her own television appearances and a 2022 Netflix documentary in which she said: “I was a daddy’s girl all my life.”
Why did Markle Sr nail plywood to the windows of his homes?
In an intriguing section of Prince Harry’s autobiography Spare, which was published four years after Meghan learnt of the damaging allegations against her father, the duke described Markle as “a complicated man”.
Harry made no reference to the allegations in his book but wrote about media coverage in the run-up to their 2018 wedding, saying: “The press reported that, as a result [of the press interest], Meg’s father had nailed plywood over his windows. But this wasn’t true. He’d often had plywood nailed over his windows, even when living in Los Angeles, well before Meg started dating me. Complicated man.”
What could happen next for Markle Sr?
Investigators are analysing data to determine the full scope and extent of the alleged offending. The Philippines interior minister, Jonvic Remulla, said that “all signs point to a possible sex offender of the grossest kind”.
The authorities said that the forensic data would be analysed in a week.
This will have to be completed before police decide whether to charge Markle Sr, who is thought to be in Florida recovering from a leg amputation.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigations said that it was aware of the allegations, adding that it would provide support where appropriate to the authorities in the Philippines. The FBI also said that it would investigate “any related allegations of federal violations of US law”.
The US has an extradition treaty with the Philippines, which means that in principle Markle could be sent there to face any trial should the authorities charge him