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When King Charles stripped Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor of his titles and announced he would be booted out of Royal Lodge, Buckingham Palace said the “censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him”.
Four months and more than 3m documents later, Charles must surely feel vindicated on his tough approach. For while there is nothing to suggest the king nor any other senior royals knew then what was to come in the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, what has emerged has been truly shocking.
The position of Mountbatten-Windsor, and that of his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, appears even more grave, and the shadow cast over the royal family and institution even darker.
With government pressure mounting on the former prince to testify to the US Congress on what he knew about Epstein, royal sources can only indicate that it is “ultimately a matter for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his conscience”.
From Mountbatten-Windsor himself, we have heard nothing. He has always denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein; in particular he has denied the allegation he had sex with Virginia Giuffre when she was 17 and was trafficked by the US financier.
Nothing in the documents recently disgorged by the US Department of Justice shows legal wrongdoing on the part of the ex-prince. But they can be said to raise questions over his judgment at a time when he was a working royal and UK trade envoy globe-trotting to represent the nation’s interests.
Recently released undated images appearing to show him crouching on all fours over an unidentified clothed woman and touching her abdomen are disturbing given they were taken at Epstein’s New York City mansion.
His unequivocal assertion that he broke off his friendship with Epstein in New York in December 2010 is challenged. After that trip, he appears to have written to Epstein: “It was great to spend time with my US family. Looking forward to joining you all again soon.”
In January 2011, he appears to thank Epstein for sorting out a financial problem for his ex-wife and reveals he is going on his annual retreat. “This week is all about me. Time to put something back into me before the rest of the world starts sucking it out in all their greed and demands,” an account named “The Duke” writes.
One particularly grubby allegation, contained in a 2011 legal document, is that Epstein and the then prince asked an exotic dancer for a threesome at the financier’s Florida home in “early 2006”, with the woman’s lawyer accusing the two of having “prevailed upon her to engage in various sex acts” during the alleged encounter. Lawyers also claimed the party at Epstein’s West Palm Beach home had included girls “as young as 14 years old” who were “dressed provocatively”.
The unnamed woman claimed “she was hired to dance, not to have sex” and “she was working as an exotic dancer, but she was treated like a prostitute”. “After the men had satisfied themselves, they invted [sic] my client to take a trip with them to the Virgin Islands. She declined their invitation. She was then chauffeured back to the strip club,” the legal letter continues. It says the woman would be content to keep the alleged encounter confidential “in exchange for a payment of 250,000 dollars”.
In tandem, Thames Valley police, which covers Windsor, are assessing claims made by a US lawyer that a second woman was sent to the UK by Epstein for a sexual encounter with Mountbatten-Windsor. It allegedly occurred at the former prince’s residence, Royal Lodge, in 2010, with the woman described as not British and in her 20s at the time. The force said on Tuesday: “We take any reports of sexual crimes extremely seriously and encourage anyone with information to come forward.”
These are untested allegations to which Mountbatten-Windsor has yet to respond. Even so, they are discomfiting for the royal family. The only senior royal to have commented so far is the Duke of Edinburgh, who, when asked about the documents by a journalist, said: “I think it’s all really important, always, to remember the victims and who are the victims in all this.”
As for the former Duchess of York, also now titleless, the emails suggest a relationship with Epstein in which she often appears to have been in need of money – including £20,000 for rent on one occasion. She called him her “pillar”, offered to “organise your houses”, and jokingly told him “just marry me”, the documents suggest.
She appears to have had lunch with him, and her daughters, in July 2009, days after he was released from prison, where he was serving a sentence for child sex offences. She appears to have been bereft on finally concluding in 2011 it was “crystal clear to me that you were only friends with me to get to Andrew. And that really hurt me deeeply [sic]. More than you will know.”
The timing of Mountbatten-Windsor’s move from Royal Lodge, under the cover of darkness on Monday night to the king’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk, may have been coincidence. He will temporarily stay at Wood Farm Cottage – where his father, the late Duke of Edinburgh, retired to – before moving permanently to the five-bedroom Marsh Farm, still undergoing renovation, it is understood.
The optics of him horse riding in Windsor Great Park or cheerily waving to passersby as he drove around this week were not good. He may still be seen at Windsor on occasion, it is understood, as the full move may take some time to complete. But, by and large, he will be geographically distanced from the royal hub, from where the rest of his family will attempt to carry on business as usual.
