Meghan’s father Thomas Markle arrested in US on child sex abuse material charges

Thomas Markle, the father of Prince Harry’s wife Meghan, was arrested on Friday morning by federal agents in Florida on charges related to child sexual abuse material, people familiar with the matter said.

The people who confirmed his arrest were not authorised to publicly discuss the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Markle, 82, was taken into custody at the retirement home where he lives near Tampa.

The arrest comes after a stash of child porn was allegedly found at Markle’s former home in the Philippines and at a storage unit he rented in Mexico.

Meghan recently said she was “deeply distressed” by allegations that a collection of child sexual abuse images had been found at her father’s former home. She also revealed that a letter containing “troubling allegations” about him had been sent to London police in 2018.

Meghan, an American citizen who starred in the US television drama Suits, married Harry at Windsor Castle in 2018. They have two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

Her father, a retired television lighting and photography director, did not attend the wedding, prompting extensive coverage in the British media of Meghan’s estrangement from her father. Meghan said she decided to distance herself from him to protect her children.

Markle was living in the Philippines earlier this year when he suffered a stroke and had his left leg amputated. That forced him to return to the US.

The Sun reported that his son, Thomas Markle Jnr, recently found “hundreds, if not thousands” of child sex abuse images in boxes at his father’s former home in Cebu City, in the Philippines, when he was clearing out the property.

He told the newspaper that he reported the images to police in the Philippines and contacted the FBI.

“I have supported, cared for him and helped him for years – but that stops now,” he told The Sun. “I won’t speak to my father ever again unless I’m called to give evidence against him.”