Prince Andrew wins UK legal challenge as police admit search warrants for his former royal homes were unlawful, but the investigation into alleged misconduct continues
LONDON: Disgraced former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor won a UK legal challenge over searches of his royal homes after police agreed the warrants they obtained were “unlawful”, a High Court judge disclosed Thursday.
However, the court in London must still decide whether police can continue to hold items seized in the raids, with both the judge and police stressing the investigation remained ongoing.
King Charles III’s brother was arrested on his 66th birthday in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office related to his links to late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
He was released the same day, after hours of police questioning, but has remained under investigation. He has denied all wrongdoing in his associations with the American financier.
Thames Valley Police (TVP) searched his former home in Windsor, west of London, and Sandringham, eastern England, but it has now emerged Andrew subsequently launched a legal challenge over the legality of the warrants used.
The Daily Telegraph first reported the legal challenge late Sunday. The newspaper noted it was the first time a member of Britain’s royal family has challenged the lawfulness of criminal proceedings against them since the trial of Charles I in 1649.
‘Warrants quashed’
In the first detailed public disclosures about Andrew’s legal action, judge Nicholas Hilliard on Thursday revealed the police had agreed “the search warrants were unlawful”.
But “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. TVP are continuing with their investigations,” he added.
Hilliard noted he was still to decide on a June legal application by police to retain property obtained under an unlawful warrant “if it would be lawful to seize the property” under a new warrant.
“There would be little point in handing property back if it could then simply be lawfully seized under some other provision,” he explained of the police request.
“I will decide that question in due course,” the judge said.
His 10-page order released Thursday noted that Andrew “opposes the application” to keep the seized items, with a private court hearing on the matter to be held next year.
In a statement, the police said it accepted “the initial court’s decision to issue warrants under the specific piece of legislation used was incorrect and therefore these must be legally quashed.”
‘Ongoing’ probe
But it added “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”.
“We continue to pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry to effectively and fairly progress this investigation,” the force said.
Andrew’s arrest and the police searches marked a new low for the ex-prince, who was stripped of his royal titles last year and ousted from his Windsor home over his Epstein connections.
The government has even mulled passing a law to remove him from the line of succession.
Scandal has engulfed the king’s younger brother since one of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre, claimed in her posthumous memoirs that she had been trafficked three times to have sex with Andrew when she was a teenager.
The former prince has repeatedly denied the claims. He settled a US civil lawsuit in 2022 brought by Giuffre while not admitting liability.
The police probe follows new revelations from documents relating to the American financier released by the United States earlier this year, including emails in which Andrew appeared to share potentially confidential information with him.
