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The UK’s top prosecutor has said “nobody is above the law” amid growing pressure on police to fully investigate Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s links with Jeffrey Epstein.
Thames Valley police said earlier this week they were in discussion with the Crown Prosecution Service over allegations of misconduct in public office against the former prince.
Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, told the Sunday Times: “It’s my job to enforce the law and I do so without fear or favour, and that is unaffected by the status of the individual concerned.”
Parkinson said he had “total confidence” that detectives would examine any relevant evidence that might point to criminality. “From my perspective, I don’t find it a difficult offence to prosecute because the core of it is a gross breach of trust by someone performing the function of a public officer,” he said.
Mountbatten-Windsor’s conduct while UK trade envoy between 2001 and 2011 has come under scrutiny after emails released in the Epstein files suggested he shared confidential information with the convicted sex offender.
Emails have shown how David Stern, a business associate and friend of Mountbatten-Windsor, was in regular contact with Epstein and accompanied the former prince on his publicly funded visits to Beijing, Hong Kong and Shenzhen in the autumn of 2010.
It has been revealed that Stern would organise meetings for Mountbatten-Windsor based on Epstein’s suggestions.
This taxpayer-funded trip occurred just a few months before Mountbatten-Windsor met Epstein in New York in December 2010, which the disgraced royal previously claimed marked the end of their relationship.
Now evidence compiled by the Mail on Sunday has revealed how Mountbatten-Windsor used his government role to further Epstein’s business interests.
He reportedly leaked sensitive information about the Royal Bank of Scotland after it was bailed out by the government, and a senior palace aide is said to have leaked an official diplomatic cable about UK-China trade relations to a banker who was the former prince’s friend and business associate.
Another email shows how Epstein arranged for Mountbatten-Windsor to have dinner at a five-star hotel in Beijing with Jes Staley, a senior banker who was later exposed as the disgraced financier’s personal banker.
The newspaper also reported that Stern plotted with Epstein to do “discreet” deals with the Chinese government after Mountbatten-Windsor’s 2010 trade mission.
Epstein boasted about getting intelligence from Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson, saying in an email: “I’ve got the UK sewn up.”
New photos show the former prince socialising with a Chinese model at a dinner in Beijing during the official trip where he was supposed to be representing the UK as trade envoy.
According to the Epstein files, Stern advised Epstein to illegally hide his child sexual abuse conviction to obtain a visa to China after the disgraced financier’s initial application was rejected.
The former prime minister Gordon Brown has called for a full police investigation. “In the past week, I have delved deep into the Epstein files to discover the extent of Mandelson and Epstein’s betrayal of Britain during the global financial crisis,” he wrote in the New Statesman.
“What I discovered about the abuse of women by male predators and their enablers – and Britain’s as yet unacknowledged role – has shocked me to the core. It demands an in-depth police investigation, and is by far the biggest scandal of all.”
Vince Cable, the former Liberal Democrat leader, has also said the police should check whether criminal corruption took place while Mountbatten-Windsor was trade envoy. Cable, who was business secretary for some of that period, said the former prince’s alleged behaviour was “totally unacceptable”.
“We need a police or DPP [director of public prosecutions] check on whether criminal corruption took place and a government investigation into how this was allowed to happen,” he said.
Thames Valley police previously said they were reviewing allegations that Epstein provided Mountbatten-Windsor with a woman to have sex with at Royal Lodge in 2010, as well as the allegations of misconduct in public office.
Mountbatten-Windsor, who served as the UK’s special representative for trade and investment between 2001 and 2011, has always denied any wrongdoing.
