The king has given approval to staff at Buckingham Palace to open up files and records to police investigating Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, despite courtiers’ fears that they may reveal a cover-up.
Detectives investigating allegations of corruption surrounding the former prince’s relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein will be given access to documents and emails, along with government files relating to his work as a UK trade envoy, The Observer understands.
“We have said we will cooperate fully and wholeheartedly,” a royal source said, pointing to the king’s statement after his brother’s arrest by Thames Valley police last week on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
The palace declined to comment on whether it was expecting police search teams inside the king’s official residence, where Mountbatten-Windsor had a private office and apartment until 2022.
One royal source said there was a danger that investigators would find that senior people at Buckingham Palace “were aware of what Andrew was doing and covered it up” over the course of more than 15 years of revelations about Epstein.
“If that did happen, it would have been in Buckingham Palace under an earlier leadership,” the source said, stressing that, at the time, neither King Charles nor Prince William would have been party to such decisions.
‘If [police] are looking at one offence and they uncover another, they won’t disregard it’
‘If [police] are looking at one offence and they uncover another, they won’t disregard it’
Marcus Johnstone, criminal defence lawyer
Police said that searches would continue into Monday at Royal Lodge, near Windsor Castle, the Berkshire residence where Mountbatten-Windsor was based until earlier this month. The Observer has been told that police now have wide leeway to broaden their investigation if they wish and to “follow the evidence”. “What they find on his devices might lead to more investigative work and more interviews.
If they’re looking at one offence and they uncover another, they won’t disregard it,” said Marcus Johnstone, a senior criminal defence lawyer. If such evidence suggested that Andrew participated in Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation, for instance, officers would be able to pursue that inquiry, Johnstone said.
Scotland Yard has called on all royal protection officers who have worked with Andrew to report any suspicions of wrongdoing through the proper channels.
Paul Page, a former royal protection officer, said that “upwards of 40 women” visited Mountbatten-Windsor at Buckingham Palace over the six years he stood guard there between 1998 and 2004.
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Page said police were not allowed to record the names of Andrew’s female guests on official logs, in a potential breach of protocol.
Page was sentenced to six years in prison in July 2009 over a £3m investment scam. In his defence statement, he claimed a series of women had been privately entertained by Mountbatten-Windsor, including Epstein’s main co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite now serving a 20-year sentence in the US for conspiring with Epstein in child sex trafficking, among other offences.
The then duke’s representatives did not respond to Page’s comments.
As part of their inquiry, police may also examine the controversial sale of Mountbatten-Windsor’s property Sunninghill Park in Berkshire for £15m to the Kazakh billionaire Timur Kulibayev, the son-in-law of the former dictator of Kazakhstan, which was £3m more than the asking price. Sunninghill Park is just one of a number of controversies during Andrew’s decade-long tenure as UK trade envoy. He has been criticised for boorishness, high expenses and developing questionable relationships with figures including Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan dictator, and Tarek Kaituni, a convicted gun smuggler.
Emails released in a cache of 3m documents by the US Department of Justice indicate that Andrew, using an intermediary in his office, maintained close ties to Epstein for at least four years after he claimed to have ended their friendship. Police are likely to want to interview some of his staff.
Democrats from the House oversight committee have offered to travel to the UK to take a deposition from the former prince as they continue to put pressure on Donald Trump’s White House over Epstein.
Mountbatten-Windsor has ignored previous requests from the committee and the FBI to testify, and as a foreign national, he cannot be subpoenaed to give evidence.
“He can testify remotely, he can testify in person - and in the UK,” Suhas Subramanyam, a Virginia congressman, told Sky News.
The family of Virginia Giuffre, who killed herself last year, said on Saturday: “We encourage Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to testify in front of the House subcommittee.”
Photograph by Leon Neal/Getty Images