Scotland Yard refers itself to the watchdog over a letter containing allegations against Meghan's father

Police refer themselves for review

London's Metropolitan Police has voluntarily referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) over its handling of a letter containing allegations against Thomas Markle, the father of the Duchess of Sussex. This was reported by BBC News. The case concerns a handwritten letter from Roslyn Loveless, Markle's first wife (they divorced in 1975; she died in 2024), which was received by the Metropolitan Police's royal protection team and passed to Meghan in January 2019. The Duchess herself said last week that the letter contained 'alarming and disturbing allegations' against her father, and that it gave her sufficient grounds not to visit him and not to allow him to see her grandchildren Archie and Lilibet.

What exactly the IOPC will examine

The police force itself defined the scope of the review: the decision not to inform other law enforcement agencies and the decision to pass the letter to the office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. According to the police, the letter contained no information related to security matters, but did include a number of claims about alleged offences outside the United Kingdom. The IOPC will examine why the contents were not passed to agencies within the country or abroad. There are also reports that the Met did not retain a copy of the letter and had to request one from the Sussexes, and that the police tried to obtain a copy of the letter. The force said it intends in the coming days to complete referrals to 'the relevant overseas law enforcement agencies'. Questions will likely also arise about what royal officials knew: the letter arrived when Meghan was still a working member of the royal family, and it was sent to the couple's office rather than to her personally. Jim Gamble, former head of the child exploitation centre, said earlier on BBC Radio 4 that he would have expected the police to pass on the information: 'I would have expected the Metropolitan Police to contact the FBI and say: look, this is not proven, this is an allegation, you can take a look.'

Parallel investigation in the Philippines

The letter surfaced against the backdrop of another inquiry: Thomas Markle's son told Philippine police about materials which, he claimed, contained sexual images of children and which he said he had found among his father's belongings. As the BBC notes, Philippine police obtained a court order to examine devices seized from Markle's former home: four boxes of computers, phones, hard drives and old video cassettes were handed to police by Meghan's half-brother Thomas Markle Jr., but officers in Cebu needed a court order to examine them. Thomas Markle Sr. himself has emphatically rejected all the allegations, calling the recent claims about possessing images of children 'sick lies'; his daughter Samantha called the claims a 'hoax'. Markle was in the Philippines in December 2025 receiving treatment in hospital when Meghan wrote to him, cutting off all contact. Philippine authorities have opened an investigation into these claims.

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