Former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor wins court battle over police search warrants
Police have accepted warrants they used to search Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's homes in England earlier this year were unlawful, after the former prince won a court battle on Thursday.
Police have accepted warrants they used to search Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's homes in England earlier this year were unlawful, after the former prince won a court battle on Thursday. The King's brother launched legal action against Thames Valley Police over the warrants, which were executed on his 66th birthday in February.
Mountbatten-Windsor, who was stripped of his royal titles last year, was arrested the same day but has not been charged. He has always maintained his innocence. Police are investigating allegations of misconduct in public office, relating to his time as a UK trade commissioner between 2001 and 2011.
Their probe was sparked by documents made public in the Epstein files. In London on Thursday, local time, the High Court heard there were legal issues with the way a judge at The Old Bailey granted the warrants. While Thames Valley Police have accepted the warrants were technically unlawful, they are reapplying to keep the material they gathered retrospectively.
In court on Thursday, the presiding judge Justice Hillard said "the fact that the search warrants were quashed does not bring an investigation to an end, or mean that the whole of the investigation was unlawful". In a statement issued after Thursday's hearing, a Thames Valley Police spokesperson said: "We accept the position that the initial court's decision to issue warrants under the specific piece of legislation used was incorrect and therefore these must be legally quashed." "Legal proceedings are currently ongoing to decide how material seized during the searches will be managed and whether we can lawfully retain it in support of our ongoing investigation." Mountbatten-Windsor did not attend Thursday's hearing.
Continue reading
Watch a short ad to unlock the full article
The rest stays locked if you skip or close the ad early.
Despite the fact this case has been made public only in the past week, it's understood the former Duke of York launched his legal challenge earlier this year and that an agreement was formalised by the High Court in 22 July to quash the warrants. Outside court, historian Andrew Lownie, Mountbatten-Windsor's unauthorised biographer, described the development as being technical.
"We don't get the sense that any evidence will not be able to be used as a result of this," he told the ABC. Epstein documents sparked probe Reacting to the ruling, prominent criminal lawyer Nick Vamos said it was "embarrassing" police had made an error in such a high-profile case.
"This should have gone under so many noses before it went to court that it's really amazing that they still managed to make a basic error," he told the BBC. The police investigation was sparked after journalists uncovered documents which raised questions about whether the King's brother had leaked confidential government information to the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The documents were released as part of the so-called Epstein files - a tranche of evidence the US Justice Department and FBI gathered as part of its investigations into the billionaire financier and paedophile. Epstein, who was once a friend of Mountbatten-Windsor's, died by suicide in a New York prison in 2019.
Being named in the Epstein files is not an indication of misconduct. Thames Valley Police have also previously said they were "assessing" reports of possible sex offences as part of their investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor. Epstein's main accuser, Virginia Giuffre, claimed the King's brother raped her three times in 2001, when she was aged 17.
Giuffre died by suicide in Western Australia last year, and Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied any wrongdoing. Earlier this year, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie used congressional privilege to say Mountbatten-Windsor "had committed sex crimes in the US".
The King's brother has lived at properties on the Sandringham Estate since February, after he was kicked out of Royal Lodge, a much grander residence near Windsor. Mountbatten-Windsor is also involved in a separate criminal case, in which a 39-year-old man has been charged with a public order offence, after allegedly chasing the former Duke of York while he was walking his dogs in May. - ABC
Article text via FreeNewsAPI. Rights remain with RNZ.
Read on publisher site → Opens RNZ in a new tab
