In a statement to the BBC, the Met said that protection officers were held to the same high standards of professional behaviour as all police officers.<\/p>\n
“They know their actions will be open to scrutiny.”<\/p>\n
The force added that it does not comment on security arrangements for protected individuals. <\/p>\n
Emails released in the Epstein files appear to show arrangements for Andrew to stay with Epstein in December 2010.<\/p>\n
In the correspondence, Andrew’s private secretary asks for the address where he would have been staying and “confirmation on whether there is room for both his protection officers at the house”.<\/p>\n
Internal emails between Epstein’s staff confirm that there was “room for both Andrew’s bodyguards\u2026 one on the 4th floor and one on the 5th floor”.<\/p>\n
The emails suggest that Andrew and his Metropolitan police close protection officers were given a temporary security code to “get in and out” of Epstein’s New York property. <\/p>\n
In a message dated 1 December 2010, the evening before Epstein hosted a dinner party, an unidentified member of staff wrote to Epstein: “The Duke’s 2 protection officers along with the state security will all be here for tomorrow’s dinner party. Rich has given them instruction on the door”.<\/p>\n
In a previous statement to the BBC, the Met did not confirm whether the officers stayed at Epstein’s home, as suggested in the emails, nor whether they were given a security code to come and go as they needed.<\/p>\n
The government’s Royal Visits Committee is responsible for reviewing plans for official travel by working members of the Royal Family.<\/p>\n
The committee consists of senior representatives from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the Royal Household, No10, the Department for Business and Trade, and the Cabinet Office.<\/p>\n
The BBC approached the FCDO about whether the department knew of various trips made by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to Epstein’s properties.<\/p>\n
A government spokesman said it reviewed the plans for official travel undertaken in 2008 and 2009 by the then Duke of York.<\/p>\n
It added: “The RVC is not involved in private travel undertaken by working Members of the Royal Family, or any travel by non-working Members.”<\/p>\n
Andrew was arrested on Thursday last week on suspicion of misconduct in public office and released under investigation 11 hours later. <\/p>\n
Searches at his former Windsor home, Royal Lodge, are continuing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a statement to the BBC, the Met said that protection officers were held to the same high…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-439866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}