At least six police vehicles broke into the Sandringham complex in Norfolk at eight in the morning this Thursday (nine in the morning in Spanish peninsular time), where the former Prince Andrew of England has lived for four months. It was the 66th birthday of Elizabeth II’s third son. The surprise has led to an earthquake that is on its way to becoming the biggest crisis for the British royal family. The agents arrested Andrés, accused of inappropriate conduct in public office, for his shady relationships and dealings with him. This crime is punishable by penalties ranging from a few months in prison to permanent imprisonment, depending on the seriousness of each case.
Hours before the arrest, in an interview with the BBC, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had asserted that “no one is above the law,” in reference to the police investigations opened into the former prince.
After the police operation, King Charles III stated, in a statement issued by Buckingham Palace: “The law must take its course. It would not be right for me to comment further on this matter. In the meantime, my family and I will continue with our duty and service.”
in which, without naming Andrés, he confirmed his arrest: “As part of an investigation, today we have arrested an individual aged around 60 from Norfolk, on suspicion of inappropriate conduct in a public office. We are carrying out searches at several homes in Berkshire and Norfolk. The man remains in custody at this time. Due to national regulations, we will not give his name,” says the police statement.
Carlos III immediately gave his support to the police investigation. “What comes now is the fair, complete and appropriate process that corresponds to the investigation of this matter, carried out by the corresponding authorities. As I have said previously, they have our full support and cooperation,” the monarch promised.
The new batch of Epstein documents and files published by the United States Department of Justice has once again highlighted the intimate and complicit friendship of the former prince and the financier, as well as a series of allegedly criminal actions carried out between the two that have shocked British public opinion.
One of the emails revealed, the one that apparently has prompted such drastic police action as the one carried out this Thursday morning, reveals that British, during the time he held the position of special envoy for International Trade. This is allegedly information relating to the United Kingdom’s relationship with Hong Kong or Singapore in 2010. This leak, according to the police, could involve a crime of inappropriate conduct in public office.
Former Prince Andrés has always denied the accusations against him. Not only regarding the alleged leak of confidential financial information, but also the data that supposedly links him to the sexual trafficking of women, many of them minors, launched by his friend Epstein. The American pedophile was found dead in his cell in a New York jail in August 2019. The coroner ruled that he committed suicide.
In the new documents published by the US Government there are photos of Andrés on the ground, leaning on a woman whose face cannot be seen. The former prince appears to be massaging the young woman’s stomach while raising his head and looking at the camera. Neither the date nor the location of the photo is specified, but along with it, an email exchange between the two men has also been published, in August 2010, in which Epstein tells him that he is going to send a 26-year-old Russian woman to the United Kingdom for his friend to meet.
Essex Police have opened investigations into the American financier’s alleged use of London’s Stansted Airport to send or take dozens of his victims, most of them from Latvia and Russia, out of the United Kingdom. At least one of those flights reflects a connection to former Prince Andrew.
The king’s brother already negotiated a multimillion-dollar extrajudicial settlement in 2022 for having sexually abused her on at least three occasions when she was a minor. Giuffre ended up committing suicide, but left behind her posthumous memoirs that recounted in lurid detail her encounters with the son of Elizabeth II.
The unsolved problem of Charles III
Andrew’s relationship with Epstein has threatened from the beginning to be the biggest crisis for the British royal family. A problem inherited by Charles III that he has not been able to firmly address until now.
He stripped his brother of all his titles, including prince, duke of York, and member of the Royal Order of the Garter. He removed him from any public responsibility as a member of the royal house and expelled him from the mansion he enjoyed in the Windsor Castle complex. But all these attempts to condemn him to social ostracism were responded to, by Andrés, with gestures of arrogance. And on the part of the British public opinion, with dissatisfaction and boredom. They were courtly gestures exaggeratedly valued by the press, but they did not translate into a concrete demand for responsibility.
In recent weeks, faced with the scandal of the new revelations of Epstein’s documents, Buckingham Palace signaled for the first time its willingness to collaborate with the police in investigations into the former prince. His reaction was received with skepticism by all critics of British royalty, convinced that it was a new kick forward that would not translate into real consequences.
The arrest of citizen Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor this Thursday, by surprise and on his birthday, may be a sign that things are changing, and that Buckingham Palace has begun to understand that it was its own survival, not Andrew’s, that was at stake.
