168: A Tale Of Two Andrews

0:00Page 94, the Private Eye podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94. My name is Andrew Hunter-Murray and I'm here in the Eye studio with Adam McQueen, Ian Hislop and Rachael Claye. And we have got a special bumper episode today about two blokes called Andrew. There are no prizes for guessing who one of them is, but the other is extremely interesting. So, Rachel, in the back pages of Private Eye over the last few issues, there have been stories about a solicitor whose name is Andrew Milne. We have called him in the magazine a litigious bully. And I would say that's a pretty fair description.

0:38He brings litigation against anyone unlucky enough to be in a contract with him. And he uses his legal knowledge and his knowledge of the legal system to sort of extract money from people. For himself? For himself, yes. I mean, we're used to solicitors litigating other people, but this is personal. So I'll give you a couple of examples. He moved house. A removals firm moved his stuff and stored some of his stuff afterwards. This removals firm was bought up by another company. It sent him an invoice with the old company's company number and company name, which you might not think a great crime.

1:17It's kind of a procedural error. A clerical error, reissue the invoice, whatever. Not to Andrew Milne, it represented an opportunity. And he sent various letters to the directors of this firm. He alleged data theft. He alleged invoicing fraud. He said he was going to bring a class action worth millions for all the defrauded customers. Because all the other customers might have received the wrong company name and number on the invoice as well. And it was on the website, so therefore a claim worth millions, he said. So he finds these technical errors, essentially. And then he masses up the costs of fighting it and says, do you know what, I'll settle.

1:58The settlement he offered in this case was a public apology. I don't know who to. £130 ,000 and free storage until 2030, which is a nice touch, I thought. The company didn't settle. They did fight it. It cost them a lot of money. The best part of£100 ,000, they say. It must be utterly terrifying as a kind of small business owner. I mean, if you're just running a removal film or something, you get what appear to be, you know, sort of very legalese letters from a qualified lawyer. It's not something you ever think you're going to have to fight. It must take over your life. Well, now let's talk about the Sheffield houses, because I think that really illustrates the case.

2:35So this was our first piece on him. It was actually, it came via the Sheffield Tribune, which was the first publication to get this little bit. And I think he's quite a frightening person to publish things about because he's so litigious. He had bought the freeholds of leasehold houses in Sheffield and I think Bolton and perhaps some other areas as well. at about sort of between£300 and£400 a pop. They're not worth much. They're sort of 800-year leases. The ground rent is about£8.50 a year and you can't put it up. They're not worth much, only to the person who lives there. And then he started sending letters to some of the homeowners saying, well, you've broken the terms of your lease.

3:17That's a nice kitchen extension you've got. Or you've changed your windows. I didn't give my permission. You could forfeit your home if you've broken the lease. But don't worry, because you can buy the freehold for me. It'll be£25 ,000. You've got 14 days to agree and 14 days to pay. And he did this multiple times. He did this multiple times. Some people spent the money on legal advice. He didn't really have a claim. Damages would be tiny. There was no significant breach of the lease. It had timed out, whatever. But other people were very frightened and coughed up. I mean, there was a tale of a woman in her 80s who borrowed£25 ,000 in an emergency loan to pay him off.

3:59There was an iReader who got in touch. His mum was 92 in fine fit fettle. She got one of these very aggressive letters. I've read it. It's scary. They again, they got legal advice and they didn't pay up, but she did have a stroke. So it's horrible. It's horrible. Reading these stories, it kind of reminded me, you often sort of forget the purpose of the law, which if used well, protects people. And this is an example of someone finding any kind of procedural wriggle through to use it for ill. I think so. I know you laughed at that, Ian. I know you're used to people using the law for ill. But it's just staggering to read how much.

4:41I mean, he spent about£120 ,000, give or take, on the freeholds that he bought, averaging it out. He's spending a lot of money. He's speculating, I presume, to accumulate a lot more. I mean, you said at least six people have fallen for the£25 ,000 thing. So he would have already made his money back with just six out of 280-odd freeholds. Yeah. And this was already a system that was kind of like rife for misuse, was it? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, the government are looking into the leasehold and freehold system at the moment. Oh, yes, but I'm a bit cross about this. Because they are. They're reforming leasehold.

5:15It's a slow and tricky process. And I'm glad that it's happening. And they are doing it quite carefully. Just take us through for a second, because it's one of these things you don't find out about until you've bought a house. And I'm sure there are lots of listeners who don't know. So the difference between freehold and leasehold, Freehold is essentially owning the building. The land, the building, the lot. Leasehold, not only do you sort of not own the fabric or the land, but you own it. It's a long rent. There's an end to it, and then it goes back. So if that's 900 years, that's all right. If that's 90 years, that's sort of not all right because the value of the property starts to fall.

5:55And then you have to renegotiate with the freeholder to say, can I extend it? Yes and you pay more it's called marriage value and that is part of what's getting abolished which is a good thing but but there is a little sort of sub-sector of this leasehold reform so if you live in a leasehold flat and somebody wants to sell the freehold they have to offer it to you first it's called the right of first refusal you get told it's for sale and you can buy it if you live in a leasehold house you don't have that right for no reason that I can understand so there are websites where you might have a nice photo of your house and the freehold of this house is for sale you don't know it's for sale the first you know is when some unscrupulous person like andrew mill puts a letter through your door saying i am now your freeholder i did contact the ministry for housing say are you going to reform this because tell me rachel they said you're quite right rachel how stupid i think we must immediately change this i think you may be able to tell the answer to that.

6:58They sent back a very nice reply that they're reforming leaseholding and it's all going to be much better. But no, they are not reforming that. It just leaves open the door to exploitative and unscrupulous folk. Not everyone is going to act like an Andrew Milne but what's stopping them I suppose. By the way, what is stopping them? Regulation. One of the things that ought to be stopping them would be the regulator. So that's the solicitor's regulation authority. The local MP up in Sheffield Hallam, Olivia Blake, she's reported Milne to the police, to South Yorkshire police, over these aggressive letters.

7:34Others have been trying to sort of get the SRA, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, to clip the wings of Andrew Milne for a very long time. So there was a judge two years ago who did a judgment in a case that he was involved in, the Crown House litigation. He said his behaviour had been disgraceful and inexcusable, I think. Yes. I mean, that's quite... You've been at the end of some harsh judgments in your time, haven't you? That's quite full on. Another report in the I said they'd been investigating him since 2018. By 2021, Andrew Milne had submitted 184 complaints against the regulator to it.

8:12184. 184. And applied for two injunctions insisting that it investigate his complaints before it investigate and regulate him. The SRA claims it is urgently considering restricting his practising licence. What are they waiting for? I think you misunderstand the term urgently. Well, I do have news. Oh, OK. Because last week, last Wednesday, in fact, they finally got around to putting some interim restrictions on his practising licence. Essentially, the SRA is waiting until he's just been found guilty of stalking. It's waiting for this. We're going to come on to that. I hope we are right. You can't just throw away, you've just been found guilty of stalking, Rachel.

8:57Yes, well, spoiler alert, yeah. He was charged with stalking a young gentleman called Daniel Cloak, who had a legal blog called Mouse in the Court, bombarding him with emails between March and August 2024, I think about 120 emails. The main themes of the emails are, I'm going to sue you, and I want you to go on a date with me. It's an interesting approach, isn't it? It's okay. Suing people into a relationship with you. You might think of a doomed combo. There was voicemails on his birthday, happy birthday, Daniel. Daniel Cloak never gave him his phone number or his address. And there was also, ultimately, a visit to Daniel Cloak's home and a rather menacing note through the door, which we'll get to.

9:51Just a tenner of the emails that he was sending, only one of which Daniel Cloak ever replied to. One of them said, I've got a property in Wales. Come and visit me in Wales. We'll spend some time together. And I won't sue you for 14 days either side of the visit. What a charming, irresistible offer. Another one said, oh, let's go for a weekend in a hotel and I'll transfer£1 ,000 into your bank account in the morning. It's a bit grim, isn't it? A bit grim. But that's not all. That's not all. Andrew Milne came to the house. There's doorbell footage of him loitering outside. He's got a brown envelope in his hand.

10:32It might be court papers. But what we do know is that when Daniel Cloak got home that night, there was a handwritten note pushed through the letterbox. And it said, Where are you? Lol, lol, lol. Are you suddenly very shy? I am amazed there is actually a property which can be seized. after you are bankrupt if you agree to be my total sex slave I will let you live in the garage and that's the point at which Daniel Cloak called the police. So he's just in the last month been found guilty for these stalking offences. Do you want to hear the defence first? Can I share the defence because I think it's I think it's worth hearing.

11:08Andrew Milne's defence was that Daniel Cloak was stalking him. The snag was that Andrew Milne couldn't produce any phone records, couldn't produce any hotel receipts or sort of any any corroboratory evidence no text messages he said daniel cloak had emailed him but he didn't have any of the emails and what did the judge make of this what did the judgment her her verdict was um crystal clear um she said daniel cloak's evidence was entirely credible andrew milne's um claims were not true now rachel i know that uh the eye will have been in touch with Mr Milne so I think it's only fair that we read out his statement in response to us which was the allegations you make are wholly false and simply lies that you have invented we have instructed leading counsel and will shortly be pursuing a claim.

12:02I don't suppose there's been any sign of that claim? Bated breath. Okay, we're waiting for it. So, he's been found guilty by a judge Yes. And the solicitor of regulation authority is has suspended him for what, five minutes did you say? No, longer. It's been less than a week. Less than a week. What is it? Five days already. This is beginning to sound like a story in which justice is nearly being done. Well, fingers crossed. So the next stage, 10th of March, is sentencing. The judge has to assess sort of culpability and harm and decide where to land. The options are a fine, a community service, or 26 weeks in prison.

12:45who knows what she'll think but the SRA is making what it does about Andrew Milne contingent on what she decides it seems to me that having had this man on its casebook for eight years what is the SRA for if it can't bring a person like this what seems particularly extraordinary is they've already had a referral from a judge haven't they in that 2024 case you were talking about you would think that would sort of prioritize things and maybe get things fast tracked but evidently not So it could be that he's put in jail and continues to act as a solicitor during his time I mean that would be amusing at least On the SRA's part you wouldn't want to you know jump the gun He's buck passing isn't he?

13:33Have you been investigating for that long to suddenly react to a totally separate coronal case? We don't know what's happened in the background evidently they've tried to investigate him he's pushed back very hard we don't know what the story is but we do know there was no outcome and the public was not protected because we've got these stories now it's waiting for the judge to kind of enable the next phase what was it doing for the eight years why have people not been protected in that time we and i don't know the answer well when you say he's pushed back very hard i mean he's obviously attempted to terrify them by taking out injunctions and insisting but they are a regulatory body yes they can't expect everyone just to roll over and say i'm very sorry i mean the people involved who've been up to no good may may not admit it immediately also there's one of him and there's around 800 of them 800 so it feels like a an untold story and at the moment it just looks very feeble there was a MP stood up Phil Brickale in January in Parliament and called for a debate into why the SRA specifically has done such a bad job of regulating Andrew Mill.

14:43The government said they wouldn't have a debate, but they said they would write to the SRA and ask them. And I felt like saying, I've tried that. This whole story seems to indicate lots of ways in which law does not work for people who are on the receiving end of it. I mean, all these vexatous claims for 25 grand or I'm going to sue you, you know, you're going to lose your house. It hasn't delivered for people. No, it hasn't delivered for people. And the SRA is sort of there to make sure that solicitors don't abuse the, I suppose, the privileges they have as legal practitioners with their knowledge of the law.

15:22And it's not doing that. It's supposed to protect the public and it hasn't. I mean, I've spoken to people who've lodged complaints with the SRA. Some have had witness statements taken, some haven't. Quite a lot haven't. why is it unable to act? It seems like we're four people. I think if it were left to us, we'd know what to do. We'd find a way. There's got to be an argument for the entire justice system just being handed over to Private Eye. We could rattle through it all, I think. I'm afraid the fact that he is a solicitor would... That's enough evidence. A proven lawyer. Proven lawyer, yes.

16:01All right, let's now change horses. as we come to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Formerly Prince Andrew. Informally an awful lot of terrible things. But currently a recent arrestee on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Now, Private, I covered the matter very sensitively. Ian, the cover that you chose, Andrew the Net Titans, what's the time, officer? About 25 years. Now, the weird thing is, you decided this two or three days before Andrew was arrested. And the mailbag at the eye is full of a lot of people saying, can you do us next week's lottery numbers now? So what's going on? Well, a lot of suggestions that I am Mystic Meg.

16:43Or the other thing they're suggesting is that I was given the tip off. Yes. You know, my arrangements with the police are fairly complex and fairly deep. And I do request before they actually arrest people, they tell me. Yeah. But I'm afraid that wasn't the case. No, it's quite simply. I thought on Monday morning, I thought, it'd be really funny if there was a picture of Andrew with a policeman. So we went through all the stock library files. And as chance would have it, there was a picture of Andrew looking at his watch next to a policeman. And there isn't a comic writer on earth who wouldn't then do the time joke.

17:25And so we did. Three days later, he was arrested. I have to say my intuition was because in the same issue there's a fake account of the police going to see His Majesty the King to tell him that things are getting very serious with his brother. And Charles's actual real statement that the law must take its course struck me as pretty clear being thrown under the royal bus that he'd had enough of his brother. He'd had enough of this. And Thames Valley turned up and he said, absolutely, the law must take its course. I thought it would. I didn't know it would be two days or three days, but I had a feeling at some point protection had been removed, as they say in royal circles.

18:17What I do think is interesting is that I think both Charles and his mother were doing their best to protect the institution and the family in whatever way they could. Now, back in, you know, until she died, the Queen's instinct was, well, let's protect the family by giving Andrew absolute immunity, brushing everything under the carpet, not acknowledge anything, you know, provide. We don't know where the money came to pay off Virginia Joffrey. I don't think that's been yet made clear. And then that's another thing that Charles has washed his hands off. He said it wasn't from him. Oh, there we go.

18:47OK. One name off the list. But he was quite keen to say that quite quickly. But Charles's instinct is to do exactly the reverse. But in both cases, the impulse is the same, which is protecting the institution. Yes. I mean, in our fake account of this, Charles said that the real culprit for this hadn't yet been found. And it was, in fact, his mother, which is an exaggeration. but there's no doubt that they feel her approach which you mentioned uh was um wrong um and in the end led to nothing well it's i mean flunky revealed a couple of issues ago and then i saw was revealed again exclusively on the front page of the daily telegraph a couple of days ago um good the king uh well the prince of wales as he then was actually strongly opposed um uh his brother's appointment as trade envoy back in 2001 he he said specifically at the time because he said all he's going to do is go after women and play golf all the time which is exactly what happened tony blair knew better didn't he a powerful figure in government who was pushing it through not just tony blair but of course peter mandelson as well who uh yeah uh hi robert a little uh little production note from andy here um we recorded this episode i'd say about two hours before uh the news broke that mr mandelson had been arrested so so yet again uh it's a strike for the eyes clairvoyance task force we are going to be setting up a hotline that you can ring to get your fortune told back to the show we should say exactly why andrew's been arrested so the offense of which he's suspected misconduct in public office um is quite an odd one and i know that adam you've got a lot more experience of it covering it yeah thank you let's be specific about this because of your work on on leveson and all the you know all the news of the world journalists and their sources for example or police officers who were paid for stories.

20:38But it is quite a weird offence. I mean, it's very old. It's a difficult offence to prosecute. It's been around for a long time. You have to prove a certain number of things. Interestingly, it's got to count as an abuse of the public's trust. And interestingly, it can just be willfully neglecting to perform your duty as well as doing anything kind of corrupt. So I was trying to think of an example of what this would be. The mayor endures when he refuses to close the beaches. I reckon we could have had him on that one probably. It is such a complicated and difficult law to prosecute under that is actually in the process of being rewritten.

21:07There is a process going through Parliament at the moment, which is going to oblige it to include proof that you used your position to improperly benefit from that action. And that's sort of the question of it. So, I mean, sort of loosely prescribed, it could mean simply getting kind of leaks from people in any sort of public office. So that would include certainly police officers, prison officers, civil servants of any kind. An awful lot of journalists would be in an awful lot of trouble if we got prosecuted for people leaking stuff that was in the public interest. So it has to not cover that.

21:38And specifically in the case you referred to, which was the News of the World or the wider company of News UK, as they are now, News International then, it was civil servants, prison guards, a few police officers, but I think also a lot of civilian police workers who had access to files and computers and things, who were prosecuted in that case because News UK turned around and grossed them all up, along with a load of their own journalists, because they were trying to prevent prosecutions going up to a sort of corporate level. Interesting. The side of that that Rupert Murdoch's newspapers are quite keen to talk up is that all of the journalists, bar one who was later cleared on appeal, were found not guilty of the crime they were accused of, which was an even more complicated one because that was conspiracy to commit misconduct in public service.

22:30But quite minor offenders on misconduct were put away. Yes, 34 separate prosecutions resulted in people either being fined or receiving prison sentences in a lot of cases, which is the bit that News UK are a lot less keen to talk about. Interestingly, in the interconnectedness of all things, the executive who signed off on a lot of these people being grassed up to the police was Will Lewis, who has just lost his job at the Washington Post, where he was about as popular with the journalists there as the ones he was actually trying to put in prison at News UK. So when the Times is stridently saying the law must take its course, they mean Andrew should be treated in the same way as all these other people.

23:12Absolutely they do, yes. And to be clear, this is about the period when he was a trade envoy, Andrew, I mean. So this is 2001, when he was appointed to 2011. Not sex trade envoy. That wasn't then part of the description. No, no. I'm just making that clear. But interestingly, does it have to be? I mean, that's one of the questions. I mean, if anything is defined as a public office, surely being a prince of the realm counts, doesn't it? Yeah. Do you actually have to be on the payroll? He wasn't paid as a trade envoy, was he? Although I think the expenses were quite spectacular, and are no doubt some of the documents that are being poured over by police at the moment.

23:47And I think it's in relation in particular to those alleged offences. So this is taking trade documents, government trade documents, and passing them, forwarding them, sometimes within five minutes, to Jeffrey Epstein or one of his associates. So briefings on reconstructing Helmand province, which was sent over to Epstein immediately. Official trade reports for all sorts of Asian countries, which just went straight across. so those are the claims it's nothing to do with virginia geoffrey for one no it's nothing to do with with as far as i can tell any claims of um sexual misconduct it's to do with specifically these things yes and in and it's straightforward lifts from um the disclosures in the epstein files it's not like well we're looking for evidence now you have the evidence it's right there but interestingly the evidence is there of exactly the same thing in the case of peter mandelton You know, similar things of documents, confidential cabinet briefings about the financial crisis when he was in the cabinet in 2009.

24:49Just being, again, just sort of being almost auto forwarded straight on to Jeffrey Epstein. Doesn't arrest grant you particular powers to conduct searches and things like that? It does. I mean, you have to get a warrant in order to search property. The easiest way to do that is if there is an arrest. That wasn't the case in the case of Peter Mandelson. and you can also just invite people in to search if you think you've got nothing to hide or you think that might help your case in any way. Flunky's pointed out as well, I mean, the problem with being in that sort of position, I mean, there would be an awful lot in the way of written reports on the activities of Andrew.

25:22He was a trade envoy for the government, but that meant travelling along with, you know, he had the sort of full diplomatic service behind him. They would be sending ambassadors and people whose countries he'd been visiting would have been sending back an awful lot of paperwork about that. they would have been obliged to anything they thought was suspicious or dodgy going on they'd have been obliged to report that back up the uh up up the tree to the prime minister who then presumably would have passed it on to uh the queen's private secretary uh flunky also pointed out andrew had his own um private secretaries several of them amanda thirsk most famously was the one who lost her job offered advising him it would be a good idea to do that news night interview but there's an awful lot of people out there who will have not only things to say but but will have kept records uh and and that's another case where um where the king has kind of chucked his brother under the bus he said full access to uh to to whatever royal records uh they need in order to conduct this investigation which for journalists and researchers i'm thinking of andrew uh uh looney who kicked off a lot of this with his book yeah absolutely about andrew and sarah ferguson entitled absolutely brilliant book but for massive kind of freedom of information campaigns and desperately trying to get any of this stuff out of the of the royal archives and there's absolutely you know you know they remain entirely close forever so this is a this is an incredible opportunity that the police are being given for access to that kind of material.

26:33And there is always a turning point. So Flunky again said, you know, the special protection units and all these people, they must, you know, know things, but they're incredibly discreet. Well, they're incredibly discreet until the searchlight turns on there, but everyone says, why didn't you do anything? Why didn't you know? A number of them are going to say, because we weren't allowed to. And I guess that will come out. Do people sign, I presume people sign non-disclosure agreements when they step down from a position of this sensitivity? I might be wrong, but... They probably do, but what we've established in the cases of Philip Green at BHS and Harvey Weinstein is those can be overridden in cases of public interest or criminal activity.

27:16I mean, a police investigation, I would think, overrides an NDA in most cases. Yes, and I do think if you say, I did murder this person, but I don't want to talk about it, and you sign it, I don't think that is legal. That's good to know. He hasn't been accused of murder yet, I don't think. No, it was a theoretical case. Although they are trying to take him out of the line of succession, so it does suggest he's eighth in the line of succession. Yes. It does suggest they're kind of thinking of a Cain Hearts and Coronet-style massacre at some point. Well, we're all going to go up one. I'm really excited.

27:46Hey, a little bit closer. Stop, sir. What number are you now? I don't want to, like, it's seven figures, but, you know. There is actually precedent, of course, for former Dukes of York for murdering small nephews, isn't there? So, I mean, maybe they should look out. I always thought the line of succession was a biological line, not something that could be determined. I didn't realise you could be removed from it. Where's the precedent there? Is that from the abdication? Is that, I mean, he didn't have any successes. He was, well, and then it went to his brother, didn't it, of course? Yeah. his younger brother, presumably.

28:22I mean, as soon as you start to pick at it, sort of like everything with the monarchy, any possible justification for it does kind of fall away. I mean, either they've got this sort of magical blood that makes them better than all of us and suitable to sit on the throne, or they don't. If you can start chopping and changing and removing people... Chopping, unfortunately. Well, actually, the son said last week this is his first high-profile royal to be arrested since Charles I, who's had his head chopped off two years later. I thought, are we booking that in for 2028? I think one interesting element is that after Andrew was trade envoy, that ended.

28:57And by the way, the reports on that from the time say, oh, you know, Andrew has stepped down. He's been associated with a convicted US billionaire sex offender, jet setting around the world. This was 15 years ago. Yeah. This is the slowest burning scandal ever. It was known. It was absolutely known. After that happened, he set up this thing, Pitch at Palace, right, which was a kind of basically an aristocratic dragon's den, effectively. And instead of the taxpayer funding the very lavish trips and everything, it was business leaders who were, you know, paying for all of this stuff, all the travel, all the jollies all around the world.