Andrew arrested: is this the end for the royal family? – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:11Something like this simply hasn't happened in living memory or indeed for quite a bit longer than that. I mean, the last time a royal was arrested, you have to start looking back hundreds of years past to the time of the Civil War. We start with breaking news about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The BBC understands that he has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, he was taken into custody in Norfolk just a short while ago. He is accused of allegedly sharing confidential information with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. There is a very real possibility that this does actually get worse for the royal family in a lot of respects.

0:48King Charles says the law must take its course as his brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is arrested and taken into custody. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoff. I'm joined by David Pegg, Guardian journalist who's reported extensively on the monarchy. Thanks so much for coming up to the studio, David, on this unprecedented day with news that Andrew Mountbelt in Windsor, obviously, of course, the former Prince Andrew, has been arrested at his Sandjungham home, the extraordinary sight of a number of unmarked police vehicles pulling up outside his property. He's now in custody.

1:28We understand he was celebrating his 66th birthday. Yeah, it's, you know, pretty unprecedented. To put it very, very mildly, something like this simply hasn't happened in living memory or indeed for quite a bit longer than that. I mean, the last time a royal was arrested, you have to start looking back hundreds of years past to the time of the Civil War. Princess Anne was briefly done for a dangerous dogs offence, but that didn't involve anyone being arrested. And I think it's significant legally, it's significant constitutionally, but it's also very significant for the royal family. As an entity that lives and breathes public relations to a great degree, he is still intrinsically associated with the royal family in the public's mind, which is why we're talking about him, even though he's lost all of his titles.

2:16And that's something that the institution is now going to have to grapple with, despite having attempted to put him outside of the fold. The King, we're told, was not warned in advance about the arrest of his brother on his own private estate, but he has issued a statement saying that he will give the police his full and wholehearted support and cooperation. William and Kate, it's being reported, support that statement from the King. Yeah, they sort of have to really, to be completely honest. I mean, I'd summarise their position as sort of better late than never. they have now made pretty big steps to distance themselves from Andrew, but you've got to remember that they spent quite a long time not doing that.

2:57The relationship between Andrew and Epstein has been known about for a very long time, and for a very long time, nothing was done, really. I think that's for a number of reasons. Part of it is just a kind of status thing, which is he was a member of the royal family, and we simply don't do that sort of thing to members of the royal family. The other thing is that he is the king's brother, and he was the queen's supposedly favourite son. and he's a family member and however much the public might dislike him you know that that's going to influence your decision making about how you behave with someone the king is in a very difficult position as a human being he has to now try and distance himself from this person about whom he probably has very mixed feelings but doesn't really have much of a say in the matter and he's remembering what his mother felt about him and those things all swirl together and make decision making very hard.

3:44The statement that they support the investigation is a blindingly obvious one. It would be incredible if the king said that he did not support the investigation. They have to now try and position themselves in the way that they have. I don't think they have any other choice about that. I think there is a very real possibility that this does actually get worse for the royal family in a lot of respects. Notwithstanding their attempts to try and distance themselves from Andrew. They did know that people were making complaints about his behaviour. The Virginia G. Frey allegations were out there for a very, very long time.

4:20If there is now some investigation into all of that, then that will inevitably begin to touch on who knew what and what did they do about it. And because the royal family is historically quite conflict-averse, it doesn't like dealing with problems and prefers to sweep them under the carpet, there's probably going to be a fair amount of instances where people could have asked a probing question but didn't and all of that will start to look a bit like a cover-up potentially. We don't really know. And to be clear Andrew's arrest does not directly suggest that there has been any kind of cover-up or brushing under the carpet in Buckingham Palace about what they did or did not know at the time but understandably there are there are questions at the moment about that and questions that may emerge in the course of time.

5:05It's worth looking back to the previous times that police have been involved in the allegations against Prince Andrew because the Metropolitan Police did start assessing allegations made against him and his relationship with the known sex offender Jeffrey Epstein back in 2015. It is really significant that police, having made a thorough assessment, have been able to proceed to an arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office. This following the release of information in the United States that appears to show Andrew sharing documents with Epstein, sensitive documents, whilst he was UK trade envoy.

5:46That's right. So it's important to break a few things down here. The first is that this is not necessarily anything to do with the Virginia Giuffre case. The second is that they haven't said what case it does relate to, but you're right. Bearing in mind that the arrest is for an investigation into misconduct in public office, there is an assumption that what has happened here is that police have taken note of the emails that were in the most recent Epstein files released from the US government, which appear to show Andrew in his position as a trade envoy sending files to Epstein after having received them.

6:23Trade envoy is a strange position. It's like a sort of pseudo diplomat role that the British government has had intermittently. Andrew became a trade envoy in 2001, I think, and was kicked out of the position in 2011. Effectively, they're meant to sort of be a sort of business diplomat. They're not part of the Foreign Service, but they would go to kind of big events and network and hobnob with people and hopefully impart a bit of glamour and attract people to invest in Britain PLC. That was the theory. Andrew did that role for about 10 years. People did complain about his behaviour on those trips.

7:05He could be considered boorish and rude and unprofessional and all this sort of thing. And enormously expensive sort of private jets and the best suite. And terribly entitled and, you know, all the things that are very sort of unflattering in the public eye. So the assumption is that this development is based on the files that were in the most recent Epstein documents release, which appear to show Andrew receiving information relating to his visits as trade envoy and then promptly forwarding them on to Jeffrey Epstein. Within five minutes, if you look at the timestamps, and it's not entirely clear why the question that will now have to be confronted is whether it's a criminal behaviour.

7:45And that is a very, very complicated question relating to the fact that misconduct in public office is a very complicated and knotty definition. And misconduct in public office is a serious offence that can carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Yeah, misconduct in public office is a really complicated, knotty offence. It's what's called a common law offence. That means there's no statute defining it. But what it's been understood to mean is that it has to be an abusive office, that you are a public officer. It's never been tested whether trade envoy is a public officer, that you knew what you were doing and that you had no excuse.

8:26And you have to demonstrate all of these things. And so that's quite a high bar to actually bringing a charge against someone. It's a very complicated, difficult to prosecute offence. And David, I know that you have Virginia Robert Dufresne's posthumous autobiography that was published at the end of last year called Nobody's Girl. She tragically took her own life at the start of last year. There is no suggestion that what Andrew has been arrested for is directly linked in any way to the allegations made against him in terms of his relationship with Virginia Dufresne, allegations that he has always strongly and vehemently denied.

9:03But nonetheless, her family have issued a statement saying they welcome the news of his arrest. And what it shows is that nobody is above the law. I suppose there's just a sense of sadness, isn't there, that she is not here to see what has happened today. Yeah, the whole thing is like, is sort of tragic and frustrating in an odd sort of way i think like i said at the top this is not an arrest as far as we know relating to the allegations that virginia defray made about andrew having had sex with her or trafficking that said the release of the epstein files and all this great tsunami of allegations about other men or other behaviors and what the emails show they are in some indirect way all the results of campaigns by people like by her and and people like her so you i don't think you have any of this without her and that does sort of make today slightly i was i was looking through the book again before i came up and felt slightly odd reading about this arrest knowing that she had taken her own life last year and rereading the details in the book which are sort of deeply and profoundly grim and difficult to read.

10:22It's actually, it's a complicated feeling reading that book and then reading the news today, I think. Well, David, thank you so much for your reporting and for your time. Thank you. That's it for today. My thanks again to David Pegg and for more live coverage of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's arrest, head over to theguardian.com. You can also find in our show notes an extract of the autobiography of Virginia Roberts Dufresne, which was published in The Guardian last October. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest, the new evening edition of Today in Focus. Today in Focus will be in your feed as usual tomorrow morning, and The Latest will be back tomorrow night.

10:57This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Bryony Moore. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin. The lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

11:11This is The Guardian.

11:18Thank you.