{"id":440823,"date":"2026-02-23T06:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T06:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/440823\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T06:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T06:36:07","slug":"andrew-charged-taxpayers-for-massage-when-trade-envoy-claim-ex-civil-servants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/440823\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew charged taxpayers for massage when trade envoy, claim ex-civil servants"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been previous claims about Andrew’s liking for massages. <\/p>\n

In a US court statement, a former employee of Epstein in Florida, Juan Alessi, claimed that Andrew had a “daily massage”<\/a> when he visited.<\/p>\n

Emails about Epstein have revealed a ledger with a list of payments for massages for an “Andrew”. <\/p>\n

It’s not known if that is the former Prince Andrew.<\/p>\n

Lownie’s biography, Entitled, also claims that on an overseas visit Andrew asked an ambassador to arrange a massage for him.<\/p>\n

One of the civil servants speaking out says there were mixed experiences of Andrew on visits. He says he could be “good company” and entertaining, but on other occasions he had seen Andrew “shouting, being rude and generally offensive”.<\/p>\n

Lownie has complained about the lack of publicly available information about Andrew’s time as trade envoy, to cast light on claims about the role.<\/p>\n

The author has had multiple Freedom of Information requests rejected, including on the grounds that it would be too time-consuming for government departments to go through the volume of information.<\/p>\n

Suggesting the scale of the unexplored files on Andrew, one rejection said that one year of his time as trade envoy would mean going through 1,927 digital files, each containing multiple pieces of information.<\/p>\n

MPs on the Business and Trade Committee will meet later this week to discuss launching an inquiry into the role of trade envoys<\/a> and their accountability.<\/p>\n

Another former UKTI senior civil servant, now retired, told the BBC that when Andrew was a trade representative he could sometimes disrupt rather than support efforts to boost UK trade.<\/p>\n

“Andrew was seen as a liability. He went off script, he thought he was an expert, when he wasn’t. He thought he was funny, when he was being rude to people,” said the former civil servant.<\/p>\n

It could take months of effort by overseas teams to prepare for one of his visits – only for it to produce a negative impact, says the former UKTI official.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There have been previous claims about Andrew’s liking for massages. In a US court statement, a former employee…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440824,"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-440823","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\/440823","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=440823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}