The paperwork police wanted from Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s homes reads like a ledger of his commercial life: diaries, business records and documents from his years as the UK’s Special Representative for Trade and Investment, plus evidence of any dealings after US authorities released files on Jeffrey Epstein. That list, set out in legal filings, sits at the heart of a dispute that has now cost Thames Valley Police its search warrants.
The force’s concern before the raid was fundamentally practical, and it had a financial dimension. Officers feared the King’s brother might block their entry to Wood Farm in Sandringham by arguing the property belonged to King Charles, forcing them to secure separate legal permission before they could step inside. Any such delay, police argued in their application to the Central Criminal Court, would “frustrate the nature and purpose of the search” and risk the loss of evidence in an investigation they described as grave.
The documents, which emerged after a High Court hearing earlier this month, show police sought warrants on 18 February to search Wood Farm and Royal Lodge in Windsor. They anticipated that Mountbatten-Windsor or his legal team would demand to see “judicial authority” before admitting officers. There was also worry that nobody would be at the properties and that media attention would gather outside while officers stood unable to enter.
The arrest itself took place on 19 February, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, and followed the publication of material by the US Department of Justice showing Mountbatten-Windsor’s connections to Epstein. His lawyers successfully challenged the warrants in court last week, arguing in filings that the police’s claims about potential obstruction were “no more than speculation.”
What police hoped to find inside the properties points to the commercial core of the investigation. The application cites paperwork, diaries, business records and other documentary evidence of Mountbatten-Windsor’s time as Special Representative for Trade and Investment, along with further evidence of any action, communication or comment following the FBI’s release of material concerning Epstein. Officers also sought mobile phones, computers, electronic notebooks, surfaces, iPads and older electronic devices that could hold information about links to Epstein during the period when Mountbatten-Windsor served as the UK’s trade envoy.
The filings detail why investigators wanted to question him. One claim is that, while trade envoy, he forwarded Epstein official reports from official visits to Singapore, Vietnam, China and Hong Kong. Another, drawn from emails in the Epstein files released in the United States, is that he briefed Epstein on investment opportunities in Afghanistan. The documents also mention the suggestion that Mountbatten-Windsor held meetings with a private investment firm and then proposed to Epstein that he might invest in the company.
The legal mechanics of the challenge are now settled in part. Thames Valley Police’s position was that it had applied for warrants under sections eight and nine of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 at a hearing at the Central Criminal Court the day before the search. That court determined only section eight warrants were needed and granted them on that basis. The subsequent legal challenge established that the court should have issued them under section nine instead. The force has accepted that the “initial court’s decision to issue warrants under the specific piece of legislation used was incorrect.”
At the High Court, Mr Justice Hilliard noted that Mountbatten-Windsor and the police had agreed the warrants were unlawful. But he added that the quashing of the warrants “does not bring the investigation to an end or mean that the whole of the investigation is unlawful.” Items seized in the raid remain held by police, with a further hearing scheduled for 2027 to decide whether the material can be used as evidence. The criminal investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor continues.
The BBC has approached Mountbatten-Windsor’s representatives for comment. He has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. His interview at Aylesham Police Station began at 15:00 GMT and he was released under investigation at 18:36, according to the documents, which also show the search of Royal Lodge continued until 24 February.
For now, the evidential material at the centre of the case, much of it commercial and financial in nature, remains in police hands pending the 2027 hearing.