Why botched police search won’t clear Andrew’s name

0:02The Telegraph.

0:39A villain vindicated. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has won his legal battle against Tem Valley Police as a high court judge rules the raids on the former Duke's home were unlawful.

0:50Gordon Rayner: He's obviously fighting with everything he can against this police investigation. and the fact that he has won something at least, it means that he will feel that he is, you know, it's a step forward in his attempt to clear his name. We knew they were bonkers, but now Megan's Sussex squad has reached new levels of madness after trolling a priest promoting a Christian advent calendar to raise money for leprosy victims. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tomini. And me, Tim Stanley. All of world history, including Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom was building up to Meghan making jam.

1:30Everything is profound in the world Meghan, isn't it? Everything is profound and everything has to link back to something. So this video sort of suggests that this is her life's work. Now, Tim, we're back from conference. We're barely awake. We are going to talk about literally one of the funniest news stories I think I've ever read in my life. And let's just put this into context because you know you had a few haters online while we were in Birmingham. Oh, yeah. Okay. There are no worse haters, trust me, than the Sussex squatters that support Harry and Meghan. These are people that at one point wanted me killed, Hannah Furness.

2:05Yes. Acid attacks were quite in vogue for a few years. Yes. At one point, the police did need to get involved, which then the Sussex squatters tried to deny and say, we've checked with Met Police and we've got no record of this. I was like the complaint wasn't registered with Met Police you bloody idiots. But anyway. Bad vibes. Bad vibes. Can I just read this? You're going to be very careful what I say then. You'd be really careful. I was planning to completely unload but. I've said that this is peak Sussex Squad. A priest has been called Satan Spawn after suggesting a£5.99 charity chocolate calendar as an alternative to the Duchess's festive offering.

2:45This is about Meghan having come out with a£112 advent calendar full of wonderful chocolate goods. And so this priest basically responded by saying, this is a man called Reverend Daniel French. He's an Anglican priest and university chaplain. He goes on X, poor lad, I mean, what was he thinking, Anna? He goes on X and he says, well, it's all very well paying£112 for an advent calendar made by Meghan. but may I humbly suggest you buy our one from the church for just£5.99. Now, can I just say, Tim, he's been described as Satan spawn. This is a man trying to raise money for leprosy victims. Like, could the madness of these people reach higher levels?

3:32So they've all piled in going, how dare you criticise Meghan's calendar? I'm not sure he's saying that, nutbags. He's merely saying just maybe spend six quid helping victims of leprosy instead. Hannah, is there any greater madness than that of the fixated Harry and Meghan fan? God help your social media after this, Camilla. Even worse than it was before. This is a part of the online world that I don't like to venture into very much. It is a very poisonous back and forth Kate and William fans, Meghan and Harry fans. both of whom have fairly awful things to say about the other side. The Sussex Squad have become famous for piling into anybody who dares to mention, Meghan in particular, Duchess of Sussex, online.

4:21On behalf of a couple who preach kindness in the cyber arena, they've railed against cyber bullying. Oddly never pointed out their own fans for doing such things. But carry on. No, and the difficulty is that they seem to kind of tacitly support it somehow. So in Megan's latest post about her jam, she's sort of done a shout out to her squad of supporters. And of course, the Sussex squad and everybody else sort of in that world takes it as, well, she's thanking these people for their support online. So it becomes much more complicated when you've got Geoconductors of Sussex who want to be kind of world leading campaigners, particularly for safety online.

5:02and their supporters who, some of whom are doing it with good intentions, they want to support the people they love, many of whom use it to just pile into anybody who dares to mention them. It's not just for leprosy victims, Kim. This is a Christian advent calendar using fair trade chocolate. One person said that the Reverend Daniel French, by the way, hello, Reverend Daniel, I think I know him. One person said that he had an ugly heart for a so-called Christian. while another accused him of jumping on the hate wagon. He was not very Christian, said someone. It's disappointing. Others called him shady and self-righteous.

5:43My favorite is someone who said that he was a disgrace to the cloth for trying to raise money for leprosy. But I think we have to talk about the Advent calendar itself. Because having said all this, I want to add, I'm a huge fan of Meghan Markle. Please don't come after me. And I definitely want the calendar, which it contains 24 chocolates, which are tastefully, thoughtfully, it says, inspired by her Montecito garden. So I don't know if they taste of... I love how you're calling it Montecito. I think it might be Montecito. Oh, is it Montecito? But I love how you fuse it with a famous Mexican restaurant there.

6:19The chocolates are thoughtfully inspired by her Montecito garden. So I presume they taste of nettles and dandelions. Well, chicken poo, probably. She's also a wannabe farmer But I would have more respect for her If the calendar was just stuffed With Cadbury's flakes and mini Mars bars Yeah, exactly Well, don't you remember if we did that? Repackaged There's a little advert of her And she's always looking thoughtfully into the distance She's trying to remember if she's left the iron on But she's always looking thoughtfully into the distance And then she looks at the calendar And is like, which one should I eat?

6:54Which one should I eat? If that was Fergie, the ad would just be her shoving a Cadbury's flake into her face. Have you got any liqueurs? Stop it. Honestly. Hannah, it's not just that video, is it? It's this woman is the gift that keeps on giving. So we have a video of her featuring her new kitchen. We have it also featuring her daughter, Lilibet. and we have her making jam. Are we able to just... A curious camera angle on Lilibet, by the way. Yes, you can't show her whole face. Well, that's the fascinating thing about famous people, how much they let you see of the child's face. And you wonder if there are so many different videos showing different angles that actually, if you were a stalker or a pervert, you could probably piece together what the face actually looks like from the different little bits that they've shown us.

7:48But we do hear her little voice. Let's have a listen to it. Very cute. What do you think, Lily? I think it's beautiful. I think it means they watch Bluey. She sounds exactly like Bluey in one episode of this. You see, this is where you, I mean, if you'd said Balamori, I could identify them because your children are a lot younger than mine. I'm on the front line of CBBs. Bluey is great. There we are. Bluey is great. Do you watch Bluey, Tim? No, I don't. I'm very pro-Bluey. I think culture is healthy at a child's level. Of course it is. I think everything's ticking along fine in the world. And I have kids in my family.

8:21I'm conscious of Bluey. I think it's great. All right, fair enough. That's not a bad thing. But the advert is... It's cutesy. Everything in World Megan feels like an advert for an intercontinental hotel. Everything is fly virgin, isn't it? Yes. Everything is at that level of everything is tasteful and nice and very small. What do you mean? Like clean line? There's no stuff anywhere. Everything's clean. You imagine everything smells of lemon. Or vanilla, like a vanilla infusions coming out of Instagram. Yes. Yes. Yes, but I love how, what I also really admire about her is how she personalizes, you know, tea leaves and dates.

8:59Somehow they're a comment on her biography, but also on the history of America. And if you watch the advert for The Jam, which culminates in her with little raspberries on her fingers, eating them in a row, is interspersed with pictures of her as a child. You just get this feeling that all of world history, including Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela's long walk to freedom, was building up to Meghan making jam. Everything is profound in the world, Meghan, isn't it? Everything is profound and everything has to link back to something. So this video sort of suggests that this is her life's work.

9:38And I got to the end. And, you know, there's this handwritten note in there about service, all the childhood pictures, like you say, her mother, her husband, her daughter. And then you get to the end and you think it's going to be some profound message about, you know, where she's landed. And it's jammed. An image flashes up on the screen that says behind every strong woman is herself. Yes, I think we can all agree with that. I think it's usually a terrified man. The word probably is. I mean, did you see Kemi Bainock's husband yesterday? quite bless him. And behind that man is his mistress. But you say, you know, less is more when it comes to words.

10:18I'm not quite sure because can I just read what the Duchess has written here? When I was about eight years old, I started my own business making handmade scrunchies I sewed on my grandmother's singer sewing machine and sold for one dollar a piece. You pick it up now, Tim. I sold Girl Scout cookies, had lemonade stands, worked in a frozen yogurt shop, and had countless other jobs. Someone should have contacted the police. This is child labor. My entrepreneurial spirit was always there. As I shared years ago on The Tig, P.S. Love You Ladies at The Tiglets, behind every successful woman is herself.

11:02And that's true. But there's more. A community of love, a squad of support, an amazing team. So in other words, behind every successful woman is herself. Plus her agent, her publicist, her makeup artist, her husband, several million online supporters, and the entire Western world. And some chickens. May I just say, though, because I know you guys know this, but just to clarify, this is so harmless in the grand scheme of the things the Sussexes have said and done. There is so much that we can genuinely sit and criticise them for. Making jam is just a bit of fun. It's harmless fun. It is harmless.

11:47Yes. It is earnest. That is the word, I think, that we need to use to describe everything that she does. It is earnest. And it is always with a little coat of glossiness, which is also kind of, you know, it makes us all think, goodness me, I need to clean up my kitchen. Are we meant to read anything into the fact that we're now seeing her kitchen? Is this the kitchen? Hang on a minute. This is a different kitchen. It's not her kitchen. This is like in the old days when people used to study photographs of the Kremlin on May Day and try and figure out who was really running the Soviet Union. But instead of doing Politburo analysis anymore, we're now doing Megan's Kitchen.

12:28What can we discern from her saucepans? It's the question of the day. Hannah? I kind of love it when they put these things up because everybody online goes bananas and tries to spot everything. So someone's pointed out she hasn't actually got the gas on on the hob when she's cooking the jar. Someone else has said there's nothing. She's just staring an empty saucepan. There's nothing in it. So it's kind of endless material for people. it's not her kitchen it may or may not be the kitchen in the house that they're staying at in the Cotswolds the old kitchen wasn't her kitchen either yeah when she did that last series it wasn't actually in her kitchen it was in somebody else's very marble very whitewashed kitchen again I just want to see the Fergie version of this which is her with an enormous glass of white wine ticking something into the microwave yeah that's right marauding around marauding around maybe in her pajamas So you've written a really good royal newsletter on this, and I do recommend people do subscribe to Hannah's royal newsletter.

13:25We'll try and put the details in the show notes. Because it's a bit of a departure, isn't it, from the grand plan they had when they released the Megxit statement in 2020. I mean, I get the whole, I want to be the next Martha Stewart. And to be fair, I've said repeatedly, go and let her do it. Good luck to you. Good luck to you. Go and do it. If people want to buy this stuff, then that's fair enough. is clearly a market for Meghan merch, go forth and conquer, so to speak. But it's not quite in line with the grand vision of 2020. Exactly. And this is what people find so confusing, I think, is that 2020, all the languages were going to become global philanthropists.

14:02It's all about campaigning. If you think back then, they were doing this stream of things. So they got involved in George Floyd, talked about Black Lives Matter. They were urging people to vote. She was one of the world's leading feminists. They were going to make a difference, do all this charity work. And it's all just kind of faded into the background. And we've settled on jam. Yes. Well, I mean, I suppose if you can make a lot of it, you know, put it in jars and sell it. As I say, it's harmless. No, I haven't. Isn't life a bit too short to make jam? No. That's what she's also banking on. You can buy it.

14:37Exactly that. We have gooseberry bushes at home and my father always used to make jam. Gooseberry crumble, gooseberry jam. Lovely. Produced so many of the wretched things. I used to go to school with gooseberry sandwiches and things like that. You've been for that. You weren't that kid that got out a hard boiled egg from their lunchbox. I just don't mind. I just, to me, cooking is Fanny Craddock. Pardon? Yes, I know you're right. It's Johnny. Come on. Come on, John. You're on camera. Pull yourself together. I mean, she's... This very sort of... It's the idea of dressing up to cook. That's what I find so funny.

15:18No, that's right. She's also more of a supermother than I am because, I mean, I would no sooner make jam than I don't know. Make practically anything, Hannah. But that's... She is genuinely a very beautiful woman. I was thinking that when watching the videos. And the serious thing is, I am wondering what... Is she going to do something in Britain? Is she going to be visible in this country or is it going to remain about Montecito that her public identity is Californian? Or are we going to see her making jam in this country? Hang on, is she making that jam in this country or in Montecito? Montecito.

15:57Right, sorry. As is the advent. So the advent calendar is the Montecito house on the front. It's all branded around California lifestyle. We're straddling continents here. they are seeming to want to message this we're back in britain we love britain you remember that the old instagram post for harry for father's day i think it was or possibly harry's birthday where they had the m &s bag with the union flag on the back of the quad bike they've just been photographed popping into the pub for an 18 pound 25 fish and chips blimey it's quite steep but it's the cotswold isn't it fair enough and it's gluten-free beer battered of course it is organic so there is all this messaging of she's very happy to be back she loves britain you remember her friend heart mom on instagram talked about how everybody had welcomed her back and megan's really missed it so on the one hand you've got this messaging but yes nothing so far has suggested that we're going to see her very much out and about there was an idea that she'll pick up some charity work once they've settled in settle the kids into school harry's been doing some appearances and some what they still call engagements around his charities and we thought that we would see her doing that sort of thing we haven't yet i imagine it will come when they're a bit more settled but i don't know blackberry jam for autumn if we miss the boat i think we have actually when a gooseberry's out you lend us some gooseberries i think the cotswolds is more christmasy than montecito that's true so i think next year let's have a cotswolds well wonderful

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17:50Gordon, shock horror, stop the press because we have a headline about the former Duke of York but it's not overwhelmingly negative for the royal once known as Prince Andrew so he said that he felt that when the police raided his house to investigate him for misconduct in public office which came at a febrile time didn't it because it was the height also of the Peter Mandelson saga he's also being investigated by the police so he had that kind of string of images of police outside houses in this case his place Royal Lodge in Windsor the infamous photograph of him trying to hide in the back seat probably the most horrifying royal picture ever taken it was yes

18:36Gordon Rayner: Yes, it was bad, wasn't it? Yeah, and they raided both Royal Lodge and the place he was staying at on the Sunringham Estate as well. Oh, yes, good point. So two homes were raided. And we had reported, Martin Evans, our brilliant crime editor, had got this story some time ago and was trying to stand it up. And we reported earlier this week that Prince Andrew took offence at the way that this was all handled, thought that the house was almost over-searched, it was all too over-zealous, and had complained that the police had taken away some personal items and questioned why on earth they were relevant to the investigation.

19:09And now a court has decided he might be right.

19:13Gordon Rayner: Well, the court has decided he was right. Very other. So he took this to the High Court. He argued that the search warrants that were issued by an old Bailey judge in February were not legal. And his grounds, that's quite technical, But in a nutshell, he said that the judge granted those search warrants on the basis that he didn't think that any documents that would be seized would be covered by any kind of privilege. And he said that the judge couldn't have known for sure that that was the case. And the courts agreed with him. And that's why they've quashed the search warrants. It's a very, very technical point, which we probably don't want to label.

19:56Gordon Rayner: No, it's too granular. But the point is, I think he was saying, listen, and actually we had sources close to him quoting that they felt it was a little bit like the situation with Operation Midland, which was the investigation into high profile individuals like Lord Britton on the back of paedophilia allegations, which later proved to be completely untrue. And I think he was trying to make the central point. I might be a high profile figure, but I'm not fair game to overzealous policing. you've used a sledgehammer to crock a nut here and furthermore actually the documentation you are taking away might be interesting to the public but it might not be in the public interest so he's trying to say as well about what what happens to that cache of documents and presumably iphones and laptops and things that the police have taken yeah i mean so he's saying that the police had no right to take those documents what happens to them now is um they're not going to give them back to him straight away because they they remain part of a criminal investigation, the criminal investigation.

20:55Gordon Rayner: So it's quite a confusing legal process, this, because he has won. Those search warrants have been quashed. And yet the police don't then have to say, here's all your stuff back. So they just kind of carry on as they are. But wouldn't he have been wishing that they did say, here's all your stuff back? Because if you don't have a cache of evidence that is admissible in court to stand up your attempted prosecution, then there is no case, Gordon. Well, yeah, and I think what he was doing today was he's kind of laying down a marker. He's obviously fighting with everything he can against this police investigation.

21:33Gordon Rayner: And the fact that he has won something, at least, it means that he will feel that he is, you know, it's a step forward in his attempt to clear his name. There's still a long way for him to go. What will happen if ultimately he is not convicted of anything and if his name is cleared, whether he will use this to somehow sue the police, we don't know. We don't know what his intentions are in that respect. So it's, yeah, like I say, it's very much a sort of laying down a marker, but probably not much more than that in terms of what it actually means right now. I guess the question is, does it help him at all from a reputational or rehabilitative prospect?

22:14He's actually never been found guilty in a court of law of anything. He's being found guilty in a court of public opinion. I mean, he has no real reputation. He doesn't have much of a life now that he's living up in Norfolk on what the royals are describing as a modest stipend from the king. The king's made it very clear in any statements that he's been disenfranchised. Yes, he gets to attend the odd family engagement in secret. You know, he might go to Christmas at Sandringham, but he certainly won't make an appearance at the church. So he's very much persona non grata. In fact, the reaction to the story earlier this week was like, well, how dare he?

22:51What a pompous, arrogant person to be taking on the police. But then, you know, we're all equal in the eyes of the law. You can't have it both ways. You can't say he needs to be equal in the eyes of the law. And then when he says, actually, something's gone wrong here with the process, not allow him to have a legal redress for that.

23:08Gordon Rayner: Yeah, and it'll be a big boost for his personal morale, I think, won't it? He must be at an all-time low. he feels that he's been wrongly accused of things and he'll feel that this is the first step on the road to proving that that is the case now whether it will be ultimately or not we don't know but it's the as you said at the start it's the first piece of good news he's had for for a very long time it's also interestingly it's the first time a member of the royal family has challenged the lawfulness of criminal proceedings against them since the trial of charles the first in 1649 No, that's a great stat, isn't it?

23:45Gordon Rayner: It's history. We don't think that Buckingham Palace is giving him any funding towards his legal bills. So when I mentioned that stipend, that is for him to live and exist up in Norfolk. So, I mean, he must be paying his legal bills with inheritance money or whatever. We just don't know. Fergie, his ex-wife, remains lesser spotted. We don't know where she is. She was hanging out at a very expensive clinic in the Swiss Alps. now. We don't know, although there were rumours, A, that she's planning a book, B, that she's planning a big tell-all interview on the telly, C, that she might have moved somewhere completely different.

24:21But when Thames Valley Police have issued the statement this afternoon sort of saying we were wrong, they've been fairly unequivocal in that, haven't they?

24:31Gordon Rayner: Well, they didn't really say they were wrong. They've accepted that the judge was wrong. So they made an application to the judge. The judge granted it. They've now accepted that the judge shouldn't have done that so they're not particularly accepting wrongdoing on their behalf we should also by the way say we should have said this at the start we shouldn't we that the the whole um and this whole investigation is all about um involves the publication of material that was in the jeffrey epstein files yes uh which um which suggested that he might have shared sensitive inflammation with epstein when he was the uk's trade envoy uh from 2001 to 2011 and i I think one of the things that's interesting about where this might go next is that, as you probably mentioned on the podcast before, the police don't have the original copies of those emails to and from Jeffrey Epstein.

25:22Gordon Rayner: No, that's right. Yes. And that's a problem because they do need to have the originals, not copies, in order for them to be able to go full steam ahead with this, as I understand it. So they are still hoping to get those, but it's not certain. Yeah. Also, people shouldn't be confused here. We're not talking about any of the allegations of sexual impropriety in connection with one of Epstein's victims, the now late Virginia Giffray. This isn't what this is about. This is about whether when he was a trade envoy in the early noughties, he may have been guilty of a degree of misconduct in public office.

26:00Although, as we've discussed before, it's quite hard to establish he was in public office because it's sort of a quasi-royal role that be the bar for establishing impropriety is very high. Like, how do you prove misconduct? What was he shown? What material did he use that might have been privileged to him? Did he then gain a pecuniary advantage from it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So in his case, it's pretty difficult when you compare it to Mandleton, who was an actual serving business secretary in an actual government. Shall we just read out the second half of this spokesman's quote? Because as you say, Gordon, this doesn't mean that the case is being dropped or anything like that.

26:37So we accept the position that the initial court's decision to issue warrants under the specific piece of legislation used was incorrect. And therefore, these must be legally quashed. Legal proceedings are currently ongoing to decide how materials seized during the searches will be managed and whether we can lawfully retain it in support of our ongoing investigation. Okay, so there's question mark, as you say, over that stuff. Our investigation into alleged misconduct in public office by a man in his 60s from Norfolk remains ongoing, and we continue to pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry to effectively and fairly progress this investigation.

27:14Due to these ongoing legal proceedings, we cannot currently provide further comment.

27:18Gordon Rayner: Yeah, and if people do want the exact terminology of why these were quashed, it's quite brief. and I think people probably can get their heads around it. It's that the conditions for the warrants that were issued were that there had to be reasonable grounds for believing that documents used for business or in a paid or unpaid role in which an undertaking of confidence had been given should not be seized. So the judge should have been happy that the police wouldn't take anything that came under that umbrella and what the court has decided is that the judge couldn't have known that. And that's why today has happened.

27:56And ancillary to that, we've heard from sources who say that the Duke, former Duke's main beef, was that they were taking, quotes, personal items. And he didn't think that was warranted. So just have that planted in the back of the old mind. Right. I think this story continues, doesn't it? Sure does. As we put it at the bottom of court copy, Gordon, continues. The trial continues. Not even a trial yet. The investigation continues.

28:20Gordon Rayner: Or as we put it at the bottom of all copy, when the story isn't over, more follows. More follows. Indeed. Gordon, thank you very much for joining me on The Daily Tea. Thank you.

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