Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the disgraced former British prince and younger brother of King Charles III, was arrested Thursday morning on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
The arrest, which fell on his 66th birthday, marks the first time a senior member of the British royal family has been taken into police custody in modern history.
Let that sink in for a moment. A man who once stood in the line of succession to the British throne, who represented the United Kingdom as its official trade envoy, who dined with heads of state and enjoyed the full protection of the Crown, is now sitting in a police custody suite. The walls have finally closed in on Andrew, and the Epstein files are the reason why.
Six Unmarked Cars at Sandringham
Shortly after 8 a.m. local time, news photographers captured six unmarked police vehicles arriving at Wood Farm, Mountbatten-Windsor’s residence on King Charles’ Sandringham Estate in Norfolk. Thames Valley Police confirmed they had arrested a man in his sixties on suspicion of misconduct in public office and were carrying out searches at addresses in both Berkshire, where Andrew formerly lived near Windsor Castle, and Norfolk.
The police force did not name the suspect, following standard British procedure. But they didn’t need to. The whole world already knew.
Norfolk Police confirmed it was supporting Thames Valley Police in what they described as an investigation into misconduct in public office. Assistant Chief Constable Oliver Wright stated that following a thorough assessment, the force had opened a formal investigation.
The Epstein Files Changed Everything
The arrest traces directly back to the U.S. Justice Department’s release of more than 3 million pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein on January 30. Among those millions of pages was a trail of emails that painted a damning picture of how Andrew allegedly used his official government role for private benefit, funneling confidential information to a convicted sex offender.
The key evidence centers on an email exchange from November 30, 2010. The documents appear to show Mountbatten-Windsor forwarding official visit reports for Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen to Epstein, just minutes after receiving them from his special adviser, Amit Patel. The reports contained details on investment opportunities gathered during Andrew’s official trade envoy tour of Southeast Asia. According to earlier correspondence in the files, Andrew told Epstein he was sharing the documents to seek his “comments, views or ideas” on attracting investment interest.
There is a word for what happens when a public official allegedly shares confidential government intelligence with a private citizen, let alone one who had already pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008. That word is misconduct in public office. And in the United Kingdom, it carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
A Decade of Denial Meets Reality
Andrew’s relationship with Epstein has been the subject of scrutiny for well over a decade, but the machinery of accountability moved at a glacial pace. He stepped back from royal duties in 2019 after a catastrophic BBC interview in which he attempted to explain away his friendship with Epstein. In 2022, he settled a civil lawsuit brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who alleged Epstein had trafficked her to the then-prince when she was 17, for a reported $16 million. He denied the allegations throughout.
Giuffre, whose memoir “Nobody’s Girl” was published posthumously, died by suicide in April 2025. She never saw this day. But her family did.
“At last, today, our broken hearts have been lifted at the news that no one is above the law, not even royalty,” her siblings said in a statement released Thursday. “On behalf of our sister, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, we extend our gratitude to the UK’s Thames Valley Police for their investigation and the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He was never a prince. For survivors everywhere, Virginia did this for you.”
The Crown’s Calculated Response
King Charles III, who stripped his brother of his royal titles in late 2025 and recently evicted him from Royal Lodge near Windsor Castle, issued a carefully worded statement expressing his “deepest concern” and stressing that “the law must take its course.” Buckingham Palace pledged its “full and wholehearted support and cooperation” with investigators.
Make no mistake about the calculation here. The Palace saw this coming. Just last week, Buckingham Palace took the unprecedented step of announcing it was ready to cooperate with any police inquiry into Mountbatten-Windsor’s links to Epstein. That kind of preemptive positioning doesn’t happen by accident. The royal institution is in survival mode, and Andrew is the price of survival.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, himself under intense political pressure over the related Epstein revelations concerning former Ambassador Peter Mandelson, kept his response terse: “Nobody is above the law.”
Bigger Than One Man
Andrew’s arrest doesn’t exist in isolation. Thames Valley Police is also reportedly assessing information related to the possible trafficking of a young woman for sex with the former prince in 2010. Meanwhile, London’s Metropolitan Police has confirmed a separate investigation into Peter Mandelson’s conduct, also stemming from the Epstein document release. Mandelson has denied any wrongdoing.
The ripple effects of the DOJ’s document release continue to spread across the Atlantic, toppling the powerful and well-connected from positions they once considered untouchable. The Epstein files have proven to be exactly what survivors and investigators hoped they would be: a reckoning.
As Al Jazeera’s Milena Veselinovic observed from London, this represents a fall from grace almost without parallel in British history, from one of the Queen’s favorite children to a man in police custody on his 66th birthday. Royal commentator Bidisha Mamata called the arrest “extraordinary, unexpected, and damaging.”
But for the families of Epstein’s victims, it represents something else entirely. It represents the possibility, however belated, that the systems designed to protect the powerful might, just this once, actually hold them accountable.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor remains in police custody. He has not commented on the arrest. The investigation is ongoing, and as Thames Valley Police noted, the case is now active, meaning care should be taken with any publication to avoid contempt of court.
This is a developing story and will be updated as new information becomes available.