Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor remains under investigation, which means he has neither been charged nor exonerated by police.
British police are searching the former home of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor for a second day after questioning him on suspicion of misconduct in public office linked to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
The search of the disgraced royal’s former Royal Lodge home on the Windsor estate continued on Friday, one day after the 66-year-old was released under investigation after being held by police for 11 hours over allegations that he sent confidential government documents to the late convicted sex offender Epstein.
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During his time in custody, police had raided Wood Farm on the sprawling grounds of the King’s Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, where he is currently living, and his former home, the 30-room Royal Lodge residence in the parkland near Windsor Castle, west of London.
Unmarked vans, believed to be police vehicles, were seen entering the grounds in Windsor throughout Friday morning.
Mountbatten-Windsor remains under investigation, which means he has neither been charged nor exonerated by Thames Valley Police, the force responsible for areas west of London.
The king issued a rare, personally signed statement Thursday, insisting “the law must take its course”, seeking to project a business-as-usual air on one of the most tumultuous days in the modern history of the United Kingdom’s royal family.
Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein, but the release of millions of documents by the United States government showed the friendship continued long after the financier was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008.
Those files suggested Mountbatten-Windsor had shared British government reports with the financier while serving as the government’s special representative for trade and investment. The reports related to investment opportunities in Afghanistan and assessments of Vietnam, Singapore and other places he had visited.
Thames Valley’s Assistant Chief Constable Oliver Wright said in a statement on Thursday that officers had now opened a full investigation into the offence of misconduct in public office.
A conviction for misconduct in a public office carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, and cases must be dealt with in a Crown Court, which handle the most serious criminal offences.
Thames Valley Police has previously said it was also reviewing allegations that a woman was trafficked to the UK by Epstein to have a sexual encounter with Andrew. Thursday’s arrest was not related to that allegation.
In 2022, the king’s brother settled a civil lawsuit brought in the US by the late Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager at properties owned by Epstein or his associates.
Other police forces are also conducting their own investigations into Epstein’s links to the UK, including the assessment of flight logs at airports. They are coordinating their work within a national group.
On Friday, London’s Metropolitan Police said it was assessing, with the help of US counterparts, whether the capital’s airports, which include Heathrow, “may have been used to facilitate human trafficking and sexual exploitation”.
It also said that it is asking past and present officers who protected Mountbatten-Windsor to “consider carefully” whether they saw or heard anything that may be relevant to the investigations.
As of now, it said no new criminal allegations have been made regarding sexual offences within its jurisdiction.
The arrest of the senior royal, eighth in line to the throne, is unprecedented in modern times. The last member of the royal family to be arrested in the UK was Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649 after being found guilty of treason.