There is, unfortunately, no appeals process in the court of public opinion. This most summary, unforgiving, and pitiless of tribunals does not allow for re-evaluation of its verdicts, or the award of reparations to those who have suffered a miscarriage of justice.
And so today, some of those who stood in harsh judgement of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in the question of the estrangement from her father do not have to face the forum themselves after new facts have come to light that, in this case alone, should force a re-evaluation of the Duchess of Sussex’s actions.
In fact, her biggest critic, Piers Morgan, has doubled down. Back in 2018, the year the Sussexes were married, he accused the Duchess of Sussex of hypocrisy in cutting ties with her father. “You can’t just freeze him out of your life like you’ve done the rest of your family and most of your old friends,” wrote Morgan. “All your fancy new palaces, servants and tiaras won’t make up for losing your father.” Others were quick to pile in, pointing to this as another measure of the Duchess of Sussex’s heartlessness and opportunism.
But the news that her 82-year-old father, Thomas Markle Snr, is under investigation in the Philippines for the alleged possession of a huge cache of indecent images of children sheds a different light on the issue. He denies all the allegations, but the Philippine interior minister said that “all signs point to a possible sex offender of the grossest kind”.
In response to this revelation, the Duchess of Sussex released a statement on Saturday saying that she received a letter from the Metropolitan Police in early 2019 – not in 2018, as her Friday statement said – containing serious allegations about her father. She was, she says, given assurances that these claims were being investigated. That she should go public with this piece of information only now is entirely a matter for her. She had been advised not to prejudice the criminal investigation, and, besides which, she had every right to keep this shaming piece of news private.
Her statement read: “I hope it can now be understood that, despite certain media publications’ 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.”
At this point, it is worth noting that very little in the evaluation of the Duchess of Sussex is straightforward: in 2022, she gave an interview to Netflix in which she still talked about her father in admiring tones. This is puzzling, given what we know about the timeline, and she can hardly complain if inconsistencies in her narrative are exposed. But there seems no reason why those who vilified her back then for ostracising her father should blindly continue to hold that position.
Morgan, for one, has maintained his long-held antipathy to the Duchess of Sussex, criticising her for not making public the information she had in 2019, and questioning whether she had done anything to follow up on the claims. “Why was nothing done? Why was nothing said? And why did she not go public to protect others?” he posted on X. This, of course, was the job of the Metropolitan Police, which is now weighing up whether to report itself to the police watchdog over what may be seen as its failings in this case.
It is difficult to take the temperature of public reaction to these latest claims, and to the Duchess of Sussex’s defence of her position, because, like Morgan, so many people have such deeply entrenched views about her. But this is a private agony which should afford her a sympathetic hearing.
What’s more, it raises an uncomfortable question for her detractors. Why were so many people so confident that a daughter who had chosen to distance herself from her father must be the villain of the piece? And while, in her statement, the Duchess of Sussex expresses concern for “any children who may have been harmed”, she is also a victim herself. Women cannot be held responsible for men’s conduct.
If the Duchess of Sussex was dissuaded from sharing the existence of the letter for legal reasons, not only did she have the private pain of her father’s alleged actions, she had no way of explaining why she had taken the decision to cut contact with him. In retrospect, it makes the excoriation of her in this particular matter especially cruel and ignorant.
This is how the court of public opinion works. There is no defence, only prosecution. No nuance, only sweeping certainties. But maybe, in the midst of this murky, sordid, unpleasant business, we can find it in our hearts to feel a small measure of compassion for her.