Disgraced Royal Pulls Off Stunning Legal Victory, Thrusting King Charles Into Excruciatingly Awkward Position

Warrants that allowed the search of two properties belonging to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor were unlawful, a London judge ruled on Thursday in what appears to be a stunning coup for the disgraced scion of the House of Windsor and a confoundingly awkward development for his family.The decision was handed down by Judge Nicholas Hilliard, who ruled that a “significant error was made in the application for and the granting of the search warrants.” Judge Hilliard allowed for the possibility that the evidence retrieved pursuant to those warrants could still be preserved. He explained that 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.”Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of King Charles III, was arrested in February on his 66th birthday on suspicion of misconduct in public office for sharing secrets with another disgraced figure, Jeffrey Epstein. He was held for 12 hours and was never charged. Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor served as Britain’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment between 2001 and 2011. The warrants gave police access to the Royal Lodge at Windsor and another property at Sandringham.Judge Hilliard quashed the warrants in July, but the decision was kept under seal until now at the request of Thames Valley Police. A separate hearing will be held next year to determine the fate of the evidence, which will be held in police custody in the meantime. In a statement, the police declared that the quashing of the warrants “relates specifically to a decision made by the court regarding the legal basis for these and is not a judgment on our ongoing investigation.” That suggests that the snag for Judge Hilliard concerned the law under which the police applied for the warrants.Buckingham Palace has not yet commented on the setback for the police. When Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor was first arrested, his brother, the king, declared: “I have learned with the deepest concern the news about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and suspicion of misconduct in public office.”“What now follows is the full, fair, and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities,” the king continued. “In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation. Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.”The monarch signed that statement, unusually, “Charles R.” That is Latin for Charles Rex, or Charles the King. It contains little brotherly warmth. Last year, the king stripped Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor of all of his remaining royal titles, style, and honors that had not already been ripped from him in 2019 by Queen Elizabeth II. That earlier demotion followed Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor’s disastrous BBC interview about his friendship with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who killed himself while in prison in 2019.One of Elizabeth’s biographers, Gyles Brandreth, reckons that the “Queen was a realist. She essentially fired her own son.” Royal watchers, though, have long insisted that the queen held a special place for Andrew, who was known as the “playboy prince” and served honorably in the Royal Air Force during the 1982 Falklands War against Argentina.Reportedly, Elizabeth pushed for Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor to serve as her trade ambassador in the hopes that it would provide him with some useful structure. That is the post he is now accused of abusing. Both the prodigal prince and his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, were close associates of Epstein.Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor’s efforts to clear his name — now jump-started — are unlikely to please his Windsor relatives, who have generally taken a dim view of royals, even banished ones, engaging with the legal system. In August, Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor’s nephew, Prince Harry, was routed in a civil defamation case against Associated Newspapers. His decision to litigate was disapproved of by his father, who now has to contend with the Sussexes’ chaotic return to Britain.When Prince Harry testified in another defamation case — a successful suit in 2023 against the Daily Mirror — he was the first royal to do so in 130 years. As The New York Sun earlier reported, no person with royal blood in their veins has contested a criminal case against them since King Charles I in 1649. The current king’s distant ancestor was convicted of a “wicked design to erect and uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power to rule according to his Will.”

Disgraced Royal Pulls Off Stunning Legal Victory, Thrusting King Charles Into Excruciatingly Awkward Position

Disgraced Royal Pulls Off Stunning Legal Victory, Thrusting King Charles Into Excruciatingly Awkward Position

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