Mountbatten-Windsor & the Met

Mountbatten-Windsor & the Met: No Further Action – Again

by TIM HICKS

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Introduction

As are readers are all aware, King Charles has moved to safeguard the Windsor dynasty by stripping the former Prince Andrew of all his titles, so that he is now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Some readers may believe that this means that he is no longer protected by the establishment and for the first time will be treated the same as the rest of us. A major step forward in the fight to prevent the abuse of women and upholding the principle that we are all equal under the law.

I regret to say that based on careful analysis, the NYE respectfully begs to differ. The facts do not support this opinion.

The Role of the Metropolitan Police

The Metropolitan Police Service (Met) is the area force for London. It has responsibility for policing and investigating crime within the Metropolitan Police District (MPD) its Force area. This includes investigating allegations of sexual offences including trafficking in the MPD.

In this respect, it is the same as the other forces in England and Wales. What makes the Met different is:

1. Its size, being by far the biggest police force in the country.
2. It has national responsibilities, in addition to the normal local policing responsibilities that all other forces have.

These national responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Guarding royal palaces and residences.
• Providing bodyguards called Personal Protection Officers (PPOs) to politicians, diplomats and members of the royal family, whichever force area they are in. Whether they are in residence, travelling, or attending official events in the UK or abroad.
• Intelligence work and analysis to identify any threats to members of the Royal Family.

This means there is a conflict of interest between those Met officers that were tasked with investigating the allegations against Prince Andrew made by the late Ms Virginia Giuffre and those that were tasked with protecting him.

The First Met Investigations 

The first investigations and their outcomes are as follows:

1. First investigation was in 2015. Ms Giuffre’s gave evidence to officers from the Metropolitan Police and in 2016 that she had been trafficked to Mountbatten-Windsor by Jeffrey Epstein when she was seventeen. The Met refused to take any action.
2. Following the death of Jeffrey Epstein in 2019, the first investigation was reviewed by the Met. Predictably the Met exonerated itself and concluded that its original decision not to investigate Prince Andrew was correct.
3. Channel Four News submitted allegations from half a dozen witnesses of sexual offences in the UK by Jeffrey Epstein in 2021. The Met investigated this evidence, but took no action.
4. A fourth review was initiated by the Met in 2022 and it again recommended no action.

It should also be said that:

• Metropolitan Police Officers prevented the serving of papers on Prince Andrew by turning away the process server. Obviously it is not the duty of a police officer to frustrate due process of law by preventing the serving of legal papers.
• Prince Andrew’s bodyguard team from the Met can identify where he was at any time, because they were with him all the time. However, none of their evidence has been quoted by any of the above investigations as to what they know. Which would of course clear up some of the allegations one way or the other.

The question why has police evidence on Prince Andrew’s location at the times he is alleged to have been abusing a woman that was trafficked to him been ignored and withheld from the public must be asked. It has been asked. Commissioner Cressida Dick can be seen squirming with discomfort while evading this question here

The Latest Met Investigation

It has been alleged that in 2011 the then Prince Andrew gave personal information on Miss Giuffre (her full name, date of birth and US Social Security Number) to his Metropolitan Police Personal Protection Officer (PPO). He alleged (wrongly) that she had a criminal record in the United States and asked him for information on Miss Virginia Giuffre, who is one of his alleged victims.

This was first alleged in the Mail on Sunday in October, a classic example of the media holding public bodies and important people to account.

If true, this is a very serious abuse of power by Mountbatten-Windsor. No one knows how he obtained this information on Ms Giuffre. A PPO is a bodyguard not a detective. If there was any implication of someone committing a criminal offence against Mountbatten-Windsor, this information should have been passed to the Intelligence Section of the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch, not Mountbatten-Windsor’s PPO. This does not appear to have happened. Prince Andrew appears to have obtained personal information on someone that had made a criminal allegation against him and was an embarrassment, then tried to use the Met to obtain information on her using a false premise to justify this request. The only credible reason there can be for him to want this information is to use it to smear her.

It is unclear if an investigation was initiated by the Metropolitan Police, or if it was, how far it went. Nevertheless, it is very wrong for a member of the royal family to try and use a taxpayer funded bodyguard as a private detective, to assist him in a smear campaign against an alleged victim of sexual offences.

The Metropolitan Police has investigated this allegation and said it will take no further action. Please note that it has not cleared Prince Andrew and said that the allegations are without substance. 

The Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch is far more influential in the Met than CID detectives that investigate sexual offences. Hence perhaps the reason that the Met has consistently refused to investigate the allegations against Mountbatten Windsor.

If you or I were accused of crimes of this nature, we would be arrested and interviewed in a police station under caution in the normal way. No action of this nature has ever been taken against Mountbatten-Windsor, despite the evidence against him. It appears to be prioritizing its role of protecting the Royal Family over its duty to impartially investigate crime. It appears that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is still being protected.

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied all allegations against him.