What did the Royal Family know and when?

[LifeIsTooShort247]

With everything that has emerged about Andrew and Epstein, and now the allegations concerning Thomas Markle, I think there are some much bigger questions about what the Royal Family and Palace officials knew, when they knew it, and what they did with that information.

We are looking at two very different situations involving serious allegations of sexual abuse. One concerns a member of the Royal Family itself, Andrew, and the other concerns the father of someone who married into it, Thomas Markle.
In Andrew's case, there are still so many unanswered questions about the extent of the late Queen's knowledge, the protection he received over the years and the role played by senior courtiers. Who knew what, how far back did that knowledge go, and who made the decisions about how matters were handled?

Now with Thomas Markle. What I find particularly interesting is that the Metropolitan Police have confirmed the letter was passed to the office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in January 2019, rather than simply being handed privately to Meghan. At that time, Harry and Meghan were still part of the Kensington Palace household structure, which they shared with William and Catherine. Jason Knauf was communications secretary for both couples.

Given the seriousness and sensitivity of the allegations, surely it is reasonable to question whether the matter was discussed with senior Palace officials or brought to the attention of senior members of the Royal Family?

Who within the office received the correspondence? Who handled it? Was Jason Knauf aware? Were William and Catherine briefed? Did the Queen or her private secretary know anything about it?

We don't know the answers, and I'm not suggesting that everyone necessarily knew. But that is precisely the point.

The circumstances involving Andrew are different, but both situations raise questions about how sensitive information was handled within the royal institution.

What did the Royal Family know, when did they know it, and what did they do with that knowledge?

Surely these are questions worth asking of the institution with regards to both situations.

Oh dear. Another nice little narrative goes down the pan.

They "probably" asked Charles? Yes, that's strong evidence!

I haven’t seen any claims simply people saying who else knew if it went to their office?

Then you need to go back and re read the comments then which of course you won’t do.

People are trying to work out whether the Royal family knew - and rightly so.

Maybe people should also be trying to work out what Harry and Megan knew as well then.

Ain’t that the truth!

Why are these 2 numpties always let off the hook…and why are their problems always someone else’s fault?

The assumptions being made here on zero evidence are ridiculous.

”The RF MUST have known!”

And just supposing they did, before the wedding, can you imagine the cries of “racism” if they’d publicised the allegations against M’s father? It would have been seen as an attempt to stop the wedding or to destroy M’s reputation.

This is an article published in TheTimes yesterday evening:
https://archive.ph/wip/y2XIB

Rarely do I say 'I was right' but I am saying it this morning.

Meghan was handed the letter by a Royal Protection Officer.

Simon Case, Samantha Cohen, Jason Knauf and the wider royal household did not know about it. Cressida Dick and Neil Basu at the Met did not know about it.

The language used in the article shows that TheTimes has contacted sources directly. We have all been speculating. The Times is reporting. In this case, there is no royal cover-up. There is a Meghan Markle cover-up and Met ineptitude.

What a surprise….not!

Back to speculating now. No reasonable person would expect a Royal Protection Officer to investigate. It would be awkward if they did. 'No, your Royal Duchessness, I cannot protect you today because I'm in a case conference on Teams with the FBI and Mexico Federal Police about your dad.'

You'd be asking questions: 'What happens next?', 'Who will my contact be on this?', 'Do you know what sort of timescales the force will be working to?'. It seems to me this was the next chaper in the story of not wanting her father anywhere near the new life she'd managed to secure for herself.

@IdaGlossop

Exactly.

PS to my previous post. Rather than shifting blame onto the Royal family, who as we now know did not know, her time would be better spent asking herself why she saw fit not to share this important piece of information with the wider royal family, which she had willingly joined.

Thoughts and prayers with those hoping for another chance to dump blame on the Rf, as per usual.

Give them time! , I’m sure they will be along shortly.

And pray, how can “people “, that is us, a load of random keyboard tappers on MN, “work out” what the RF knew? Do you have your own private detective agency? Do they have access to the royal records?

We can’t. Speculation her is just that, and alli tells us is how desperate some people are to blame the RF for Sussex problems.

Ah but...the media just publishes what the royals want published remember @CoffeeCantata, even though Rupert Murdoch is anti-monarchy.

Typo

So what’s the issue, Meghan was told to not go public, the MET sat on it ?!

The Met didn't even need to investigate never mind the RPO. They needed to pass it on to the relevant authorities. They didn't. Harry and Meghan are in the Royal Family. They were working members of the RF at the time. If they were able to hide unsavoury information without anyone knowing even though that information was in the hands of the police, why were they? Because they are and were members of the RF. No other reason. No one else would be able to stop an investigation into a family member because they had just got married. Why did the people who's job it was to know about what was going on (Cohen and Knauf) not know? Should we have a Head of State who's grandchilds wife wields such power? Can the Irish Presidents grand daughter in law prevent police investigations into her father?

For me the question remains why did the MET do nothing ? it’s incredibly strange.

Why did Knauf and Cohen not know? Well, it seems they didn’t.

You need to ask HaM. The Sussexes were famously at odds with these 2 staff members and no love seems to have been lost between them.

I’m going to pointlessly speculate now, since it seems to be the fashion. I bet that 2 factors prevented M and H sharing this information: their distrust and reluctance to cooperate with these staff members and also their notorious habit of rejecting professional help and advice and going their own sweet way.

Well yes probably but again how come they had that power? The letter wasn't a secret. It was sent to the Met. It boils down to what seems like a tunnel visioned deference within the Met at least. Why did they not investigate? Why did they not say ' sorry Meghan, we know he's your dad but we need to take this higher up'. If I had a mate who was a police officer and I said ' don't tell anyone but I think my dad is a child abuser, they wouldn't get away with ' oh they told me not to tell anyone'. If Meghan sat on that letter in 2019 she was allowed to do it because of undue deference to the RF. The institution enables and encourages this. It's not to do with individuals or Megan and Harry v the RF. Meghan and Harry are part of the RF and RF procedures are allowing these messes to be excused and covered up.

We agree the Met is at fault. That's why the IOPC has agreedan independent investigation.

But we don't agree on the role of the royals.

Jason Knauf and Samantha Cohen rely on people telling them things to do their jobs properly. We all do. Meghan herself has told TheTimes that an RPO handed her a copy of the letter. JK and SC say they knew nothing of the letter. The only reasonable explanation for that is that the one person who had the letter didn't give it to them. And that person was Meghan. She still has the letter, and, seven years after it was written, has brought it to the UK. So this is on her, not the royals or the household.

This is muddled thinking. Two quite separate things have happened with the letter.

One is that the Met should have shared it with other police forces and didn't. Therefore the accusations weren't investigated when they should have been.

The second is that a copy of the letter was given to Meghan by a RPO, as she herself has told The Times, and she kept the letter to herself. There was no cover-up by the royals or the royal household on this occasion (although they do have form). The cover-up was by Meghan (who probably shouldn't have been given a copy of the letter in the first place).

its on record both from HaM and Knauf and Cohen that they were certainly not working as a team and that HaM were reluctant to trust or listen to their royal staff.

I find it very plausible that M didn’t communicate this to K or Cohen.