{"id":664971,"date":"2026-10-25T14:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T14:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/664971\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T14:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T14:26:08","slug":"thomas-markle-snr-may-be-sex-offender-of-grossest-kind-says-philippine-minister-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/664971\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Markle snr may be \u2018sex offender of grossest kind\u2019, says Philippine minister \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

All signs point to Thomas Markle snr being a \u201cpossible sex offender of the grossest kind\u201d although a full forensic investigation will give a \u201cdefinitive picture\u201d, the Philippine<\/a> interior minister has said.<\/p>\n

Authorities in the southeast Asian country are analysing digital images allegedly belonging to the estranged father of the duchess of Sussex that were said to have been found at his former home in Cebu. Meghan Markle<\/a>\u2019s half-brother, Thomas Markle jnr, reported to authorities last week that he had apparently discovered a stash of child sexual abuse images.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn these cases where family disputes are mixed up, we have to consider all the angles,\u201d said Jonvic Remulla, the interior minister. \u201cRight now all signs point to a possible sex offender of the grossest kind. We want to be sure before we release the findings. The forensics data will be complete in a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remulla said a statement would be released once the data had been analysed, without giving a specific date. \u201cPlease give us a week to determine the contents and to come up with a definitive picture,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will release a statement then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Markle snr has denied possessing child sexual abuse images, telling the Daily Mail the accusations were \u201csick lies\u201d.<\/p>\n

Philippine police are also investigating a laptop found at the home in Cebu where Markle snr had been living until he returned to the US<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n

In a statement given to Agence France-Presse, Remulla said the Philippine national police inspected Markle\u2019s former home and found a \u201ctrove of child pornography materials as well as a laptop\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe PNP will co-ordinate with their counterparts to locate and take appropriate legal actions against Mr Markle if found that there is sufficient evidence to charge him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Markle told the Mail the computers had not been in his possession since he left Mexico with his son in 2025 and moved to the Philippines \u201cfor a fresh start\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI\u2019m shocked, I\u2019m hurt and I\u2019m very upset that my son is making these accusations against me. I could never do what I\u2019m being accused of. It\u2019s the worst thing anyone could accuse me of.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is bullshit. It\u2019s just a bunch of lies. It\u2019s sick. I have no idea why Tom is trying to destroy me with these lies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meghan Markle has said she is \u201cdeeply distressed<\/a>\u201d over the allegations, which were first reported in the Sun. She said she had broken off contact with her father to protect her children, prince Archie, seven, and princess Lilibet, five. He has never met them.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the Metropolitan police confirmed they gave a letter to Meghan in 2019 concerning \u201calleged offending\u201d involving her father, but said they did not pass it on to other law enforcement agencies. Scotland Yard is considering whether to refer itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) to review its actions.<\/p>\n

In a statement, a Met spokesperson said: \u201cFollowing a thorough review of Met police systems and records, we have confirmed that in January 2019 we received a letter containing a number of claims about alleged offending outside the United Kingdom. It was sent to the MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) Protection Command to raise concerns in relation to the security of the duchess of Sussex.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe letter was reviewed, and a decision was made that it should be passed to the office of the duke and duchess of Sussex for their awareness. The details of the allegations in the letter were not shared with other law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe MPS is reviewing the handling of this matter in 2019 and considering whether a referral to the IOPC is necessary to review our approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Meghan Markle \u2018deeply distressed\u2019 over allegation her father had child abuse imagesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In a statement on Friday issued through her spokesperson, the duchess said: \u201cI 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope it can now be understood that, despite certain media publications\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

She later said she had misremembered the year the Met had contacted her, and confirmed it had been 2019, not 2018 as she said on Friday.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the duchess said: \u201cIn recalling events from more than seven years ago, without the benefit of a diary entry or contemporaneous record, it is understandable that she may have been mistaken by a few months.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the MPS holds a time-stamped record confirming that the letter was reviewed in 2019, that should be treated as the accurate reference point for when it was received and shared with the duchess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sources said that although Meghan Markle was made aware of the allegations in 2019, she had been unable to speak publicly to avoid jeopardising any future investigation and because speaking out could have resulted in legal action against her.<\/p>\n

The Sun reported that Markle jnr told detectives in the Philippines he had discovered \u201chundreds, if not thousands\u201d of child sexual abuse images on computers and mobile phones stored in four large boxes at the home in Cebu. Markle jnr, 60, said he had also contacted the FBI in the US, the Sun reported. \u2013 The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All signs point to Thomas Markle snr being a \u201cpossible sex offender of the grossest kind\u201d although a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,7425,1666,1577,303,115,90],"class_list":["post-664971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-meghan-markle","tag-philippines","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}