Princess Diana's former bodyguard slams Prince Harry for not taking responsibility of Thomas Markle
Thomas Markle has not given up on any opportunity to get his daughter, Duchess Meghan Markle to talk to him but despite this, it has only resulted in Meghan pushing herself away while the media is printing out more stories about the royals. While most people believe that it is Thomas who is at fault, Princess Diana’s former bodyguard, Ken Wharfe believes that Prince Harry should have taken responsibility. Ken believes that Prince Harry should have dispatched aides to help his father-in-law to get through the media because he is relatively new to such attention. “He’s not an unintelligent guy,” said the 69-year-old former Personal Protection Officer to Yahoo UK's The Royal Box. “He’s been through the mill himself, he knows what press intrusion is like. He has a drawbridge and a portcullis to hide behind when they pursue him. Thomas Markle doesn’t," Ken added.
Ken added that Thomas is not receiving the help he requires from the Royals to face the media frenzy ever since his daughter, Meghan got the title of Duchess. “Nobody’s looking after him,” he said. “They’re going to bend his arm, there’ll be the offers money, there’ll be the pursuing paparazzi, the invasion and the negative reporting that we’ve seen. Harry could have done something about that. He may have advised palace officials, maybe he did, but he could have insisted on that. He could well have done, but for some reason, it hasn’t happened.”
While neither Prince Harry or Meghan have spoken to Thomas, Ken said that he actually felt sorry for Meghan's father. “I don’t think we should dismiss her father as someone who’s made mistakes here, as an ogre,” he said. “His behavior is a result of poor advice or no advice.”
In fact, Ken also thinks that the palace should have stepped up in the case of Thomas. "I think the palace was at fault not to earmark this problem very early on in this engagement or even in that relationship and decide how are we going to address this with her father," he said. "These are ordinary folk, divorced living in a foreign land and suddenly their daughter's marrying a prince. This was always going to be a problem."
He further added that "there are a lot of aides and advisors in the royal household that could easily have set up something way before this wedding to ensure the rights and the privacy of her father." Ken further added that Meghan and her family have become a new source of the story for the press. "Because what’s happening to him now is, what I suspected would happen to him once the fairytale moves off, the press wants the next story. And the story is her father, her brother, her sister, her mother, and so it continues. This could have been softened considerably, had he had the advice of people in the palace to ensure this didn’t happen," he said.
While Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland has won the hearts of people and made it look easy, Ken believes that is not the case. "It would be very difficult for any parent outside of royalty,” he said. “Meghan’s mother, this diminutive lady with absolute style arriving at Windsor Castle in front of global media, that’s very daunting for anybody," he said. While the palace has chosen to keep quiet with regard to this situation, Ken thinks that "the story will run until there's an answer."