Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.
A US judge has ruled that Thomas Markle should be detained “separate, to the extent practicable”, from the general prison population on his return to jail.
Markle, who is the father of the Duchess of Sussex, was taken back into custody after cutting off his electronic tag within days of his arrest for allegedly possessing child sex abuse material, including images of himself with naked young girls.
Magistrate Judge Lindsay Griffin found he had breached the conditions of his pre-trial release, and also noted his housing situation had “become untenable”, court documents show.
Markle had been living in a dementia care home in Florida before his arrest.
FBI agents took him into custody last Friday after seizing a haul of material from two Los Angeles storage units he rented for nearly two decades. The items included slides, film negatives, and books that contained suspected child sex abuse material. Two of the images allegedly depict an adult man – whom a witness “positively identified” as Markle – with a nude young girl.
In one of them, according to court documents, the man “appears to be in the age range of 30s to 40s”, which suggests the alleged abuse dates back decades, given Markle…
