Did royal protection issue a warning when Andrew visited Epstein?

Sources say that before Andrew’s visits to Epstein’s homes in New York and Florida, taxpayer-funded royal protection officers would have conducted standard background checks with local US law enforcement.

Florida police began investigating Epstein in 2005, and a year later the case was taken over by the FBI. In 2008, Epstein agreed to a plea deal for soliciting an underage teenager. Andrew visited him in New York in 2009 and 2010, and if protocol was followed, his personal police officers should have been made aware of the allegations, Epstein’s guilty plea and his prison sentence.

Criminality on the part of someone hosting a royal, as well as the resulting risk of blackmail, should have led to the connection being flagged with senior Metropolitan police officers.

Former head of royal protection Dai Davies said: “After the FBI investigation began, and certainly after the conviction, I cannot see any way that royal protection officers could not have been made aware, either by local police or the Americans raising the risks of their principal fraternising with Epstein [directly] with the British government, perhaps via embassies.

“The question is, when it was raised, who was warned and what was done? Did it get as far as the palace or government? There are some serious questions to answer over whether the warning was made and, if it was, who ignored it.”

Answers may lie within royal bodyguards’ police notebooks, which are kept by the Met for 30 years and include evidence of what checks were conducted and any information gathered.

It was standard procedure for two specialist officers from the royalty and specialist protection unit to undertake reconnaissance for royal visits several weeks in advance, assessing the security risks of route, locations and hosts.

A spokesperson for the Met said it was first made aware of allegations in 2015. “Following recent media reporting on the actions of officers in relation to this matter, we are considering whether any further assessment or review is necessary.”

The Met is assessing information from emails released by the US Congress in which Andrew told Epstein he had asked his personal protection officer to investigate Virginia Giuffre’s background, which, if true might be unlawful. The Independent Office for Police Conduct has confirmed it has contacted the Met, but has received no referral to investigate.

The FBI and Buckingham Palace were contacted for comment.

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