“You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
UK Police Caution
As someone who grew up with Auntie Beeb, you can imagine the shock at seeing the breaking news from the United Kingdom that His Majesty the King’s younger brother was taken into police custody to be interviewed under caution.
To give you an idea of just how unprecedented arresting a member of the royal family (even stripped of his titles and styles as he was) is in modern times, you have to go back to 1647 when Charles I was imprisoned following the Second Civil War by forces loyal to Oliver Cromwell and Parliament and eventually tried and executed in January 1649.
That the next arrest would happen during the reign of a similarly named sovereign almost 400 years later is irony that is almost unimaginable!
In fairness, the former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor steadfastly maintains his innocence despite being a prominent figure in the Epstein files and it is understood that he was taken into custody by Thames Valley Police and interviewed on suspicion of misconduct in public office stemming from his time as a trade envoy on behalf of the government from 2001-2011 rather than other offences of a sexual nature as alleged by Virginia Roberts Guiffre.
Recent disclosures in the Epstein files would seem to imply that he passed along sensitive documents to Epstein whilst trade envoy which Epstein could then use to his personal advantage in his network of rich and powerful associates.
One can only imagine the quality of the evidence that Thames Valley Police believe they possess to take the extraordinary step of going all the way to Sandringham Estate in Norfolk and taking a member of the royal family into formal custody with handcuffs and a trip to the police station in Aylsham.
There were seven different constabularies amongst the police that attended the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor at Wood Farm on the massive Sandringham Estate and the official story is that there was no prior notice given to Buckingham Palace that this arrest was going to take place.
That truly beggars belief and that cover story eventually changed to something more along the lines that they gave the customary thirty minutes notice to the Home Office prior to arresting a high-visibility suspect.
But even that doesn’t stand up to even the thinnest veneer of scrutiny. Andrew wasn’t supposed to be moved from Royal Cottage at Windsor to Wood Farm at Sandringham until sometime in April and yet he was abruptly shipped off to Norfolk well ahead of the scheduled time and we’re supposed to think it was just a coincidence?
I don’t think so.
You don’t go arresting a royal without making darned sure you’ve dotted every I and crossed every T and then checked it over about ten more times to make absolutely sure you’re at the peak of the mountain of right. And even then there is always going to be that paranoia that something is going to go terribly wrong.
And one of those steps would be at the very minimum a quiet word with His Majesty’s Principal Private Secretary that some bad news is coming Buck House’s way and roughly when it will be.
Why else would Andrew have been shipped off to Sandringham which is a properly massive royal estate weighing in at about 20,000 acres in the middle of nowhere near the Norfolk coast?
Whilst there is public access to Sandringham Estate proper (though not right at the moment, they usually open it up for tours later in the spring), Wood Farm on the estate is nowhere near as easily accessed by the public or nosey journalists as Royal Cottage is on Windsor where members of the public were seen walking their dogs or bicycling near the gates leading to Royal Cottage which is right next to the publicly accessible Windsor Great Park whilst the police were executing their search warrants of the premises!
The lack of pictures of Andrew being handcuffed and stuffed into the back of the police car having been arrested at Wood Farm far away from London would be far more preferable to The Firm in terms of optics and their desire to carry on with their royal duties as if nothing untoward had happened.
It seems just too convenient that he was moved right before a potential arrest in the middle of Windsor to believe that the Palace wasn’t quietly notified of what was coming so that they might well mitigate the damage and embarrassment even in that slight way.
They couldn’t do much about that unfortunate picture of him in the back of a Range Rover once he was released from custody where he’s clearly trying to slump down in that seat and avoid the camera, though…
Then there is that statement from His Majesty the King which is more notable for what it doesn’t say than what it does.
To be sure, it does hit the required notes about respecting the law and the process and being mindful of the strictures of the Contempt of Court Act (1981) but the implication is crystal clear that Andrew is on his own to deal with the double decker bus that he’s just been chucked under.
I don’t think it takes much of an imagination as to who is really managing the family’s response to their wayward and disgraced former prince.
That stare that clearly shows there is no love lost between William and his uncle after Andrew’s rather uncouth behaviour of loudly laughing with Sarah Ferguson following the funeral service of the Duchess of Kent a couple months ago and his extensive training and instincts in protecting the monarchy imparted to him by Her Majesty the late Queen will be telling him in no uncertain terms that the institution faces possibly it’s worst existential crisis in generations and that steps need to be taken to protect The Firm.
Even if King Charles III wasn’t all that keen on doing what needed to be done.
Whilst I’m not inclined to believe some of the more overblown rhetoric that the end of the monarchy is nigh, it is hard not to think that this is certainly the most dire threat to the institution I’ve seen in my lifetime.
The Firm’s cold-hearted and and completely inept handling of the aftermath of the death of Diana almost thirty years ago that completely misjudged the mood of the country following the loss of their beloved “People’s Princess” certainly amped up the republican sentiment and for a while it was not a certainty that the monarchy would survive to see King Charles in a coronation ceremony.
But no one at the time seriously reckoned that the government would chuck the Queen into the bin whilst she was still alive given how many years of devoted service she had done for the country.
The same couldn’t be said for her heir apparent who was front and centre of what the Queen described as “annus horribilis” in 1992 which included two shocking royal separations (Charles and Diana as well as Andrew and Fergie), the divorce of the Princess Royal Anne, and a devastating fire at Windsor Castle.
Even the crisis caused by the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936 many years before I was born doesn’t seem to be quite as dire a threat to the institution of the monarchy as the various scandals surrounding Andrew of which misconduct in public office seems to be the least of the serious offences of which he is accused and suspected and the very poor company that he’s kept through the years.
His legendary arrogance and petulance in public including a rather infamous interview about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell certainly haven’t done wonders for his cause.
I think William recognised that King Charles seemed reluctant to do what needed to be done with Andrew to protect the rest of the family and the institution and it’s certainly understandable for who really wants to throw their own brother to the wolves, even one as unsympathetic a character as Andrew?
The cold calculus of an institution that has survived largely intact for over a millennium that would want to last for the next one is one that William would have been trained to an expert level and he will have the same desire to protect The Firm that his grandmother did and it is clear he will do what needs to be done, even if that means having to persuade a King to accept that reality to ensure that the monarchy can survive and endure.
I think the country has been ready for William to ascend the throne for a very long time as he seems to have the strong institutional instincts to protect the crown but he has a much more deft touch when it comes to connecting with the subjects of the realm.
Indeed, I’d have been thrilled had Charles stood aside and William been given the throne instead but after waiting for the top job for seventy-odd years and wondering if it was ever going to happen for him given the Queen’s longevity, there was no way Charles could or would pass up his turn to join the succession of British monarchs.
I didn’t think much of his common sense or judgment through the years and I wasn’t at all convinced he’d find a way to avoid being the last sovereign on the throne.
I am glad that I was wrong in that pessimistic view of his reign for he has done far better in the top job than I would have ever imagined in years past…so much so that I do feel a fair bit of sympathy for the situation in which he finds himself having to distance himself from his own brother for the greater good of the one institution that tends to unite the kingdom more than it divides it.
At least the King doesn’t have to go in for the usual way of dealing with troublesome irritants…
