British detectives are continuing searches of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s former home following his release from custody after he was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office.<\/p>\n
He was detained for around 11 hours yesterday following allegations that he shared sensitive information with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein while serving as a UK trade envoy between 2001 and 2011.<\/p>\n
Royal historian and author Andrew Lownie told Behind the Story this marks a pivotal moment for the British royal family.<\/p>\n
“I do think this is the monarchy\u2019s ‘Me Too\u2019 moment and we\u2019re now getting a new monarchy,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I hope one [that is] fit for purpose for the 21st century, one open to accountability and transparency.”<\/p>\n
Mr Lownie said Mr Mountbatten-Windsor\u2019s time as a UK trade envoy had no proper oversight.<\/p>\n
“No one quite really knew what to do with him, no one wanted him there, so he was kind of sometimes imposed,” he said.<\/p>\n
“[His ex-wife] Sarah Ferguson would carry along on his coattails picking up business cards as she went along.<\/p>\n
“There was no proper oversight – and when people did raise questions, saying the expenses are enormous, there were told the Queen has okayed it.”<\/p>\n
Turning public opinion<\/p>\n
Mr Lownie said the royal family has essentially turned its back on the former prince.<\/p>\n
“Andrew\u2019s going to have to take the brunt of this\u2026 I suspect public opinion will now be asking other questions about what was known, when it was known and what they did about it.”<\/p>\n
Mr Lownie said there may still be more questions for King Charles, who has promised “full and wholehearted support and co-operation” with authorities, to answer.<\/p>\n
“The King is bankrolling him\u2026but if he is going to cooperate with authorities, I think perhaps he could be a little bit clearer about what he knew, when he knew it and what was done.”<\/p>\n
Mr Lownie added that while he believes his 2025 book, \u2018Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York\u2019, “loosened the earth” around Mr Mountbatten-Windsor, the release of the Epstein files “have just tipped the thing over \u2013 I mean there\u2019s no way back now”.<\/p>\n
Mr Mountbatten-Windsor has denied any wrongdoing over his Epstein links.<\/p>\n
Fran and Maggie also explore how the photo of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor being driven away from the police station, which made global frontpages was taken and who was behind it.<\/p>\n
You can listen to Behind the Story which is available on the RT\u00c9 Radio Player.<\/p>\n
You can also find episodes on Apple here<\/a>, or on Spotify here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British detectives are continuing searches of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s former home following his release from custody after he was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-308632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}