Police to Review 2019 Letter About Meghan's Father

London's Metropolitan Police said Saturday it took in a 2019 letter containing a number of claims about Thomas Markle, father of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. A spokesperson for Scotland Yard described the correspondence in comments to CBS News. The Met said the letter was forwarded to the office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex "for their awareness," and that the details in it were not passed to any other law enforcement agency.

The confirmation lands amid a week of reporting on the matter. The Sun reported Thursday that Thomas Markle Jr. had alerted authorities in the Philippines about his father after finding child abuse materials in storage boxes at the family home there. On Friday, reports surfaced that Philippine authorities were dealing with Thomas Markle over alleged possession of child sexual abuse materials. The Daily Mail reported Friday that Markle has denied the allegations.

Meghan addressed the reports in a statement sent Friday. She said she was "deeply distressed" and that she had known about the allegations since 2018. "In 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," she said. Meghan also said she has kept her distance from her father to protect her children, adding that her decision not to let him have contact with the kids had "one reason: to protect them."

The two accounts differ on when the letter dates to. Meghan points to 2018 while Scotland Yard points to 2019. A spokesman for the duchess addressed the gap in comments to BBC News, a CBS News partner, calling any discrepancy of a few months "an understandable consequence of that passage of time."

The Met said it will review how the matter was handled in 2019. As part of that process, the force will decide whether to refer itself to the police watchdog.