Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is unlikely to be compelled to give evidence at a public inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein because he is subject to an ongoing police investigation, The i Paper has been told.
Andy Burnham has said he is not actively considering an inquiry into the UK activities of the convicted paedophile, despite two of his ministers saying the Government was “looking into” holding one.
Victims minister Alex Davies-Jones suggested on Tuesday night that an inquiry was a possibility, adding the Prime Minister had agreed to meet Epstein’s victims and was “taking this very seriously”.
The Ministry of Justice said that while a public inquiry is “not being actively considered”, it is “reviewing what is possible” related to Epstein’s activity in Britain – where he owned homes and is known to have flown women to via his private jet – and said it would “look at all options” to support victims and survivors.
The possibility of an inquiry has led to questions over whether Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson may have been compelled to give evidence about their relationship with the late sex offender.
But police sources told The i Paper that while it was possible for a public inquiry to take place alongside a live criminal investigation, doing so would break a convention whereby police inquiries tend to take precedence.
The former prince was arrested earlier this year after emails contained in the Epstein files appeared to show him sharing confidential documents with Epstein during his time as UK trade envoy. He denies the allegations.
Could Andrew be compelled to give evidence?
There are two main kinds of public inquiry – statutory and non-statutory. Statutory inquiries are the most common and have the power to compel individuals to give evidence.
Daniel Irving, barrister and legal director at Birketts, has been involved in several of the most high-profile public inquiries of the last decade, including the UK Covid-19 Inquiry and the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.
He said: “Sometimes it might be necessary to send a Section 21 notice compelling a witness to attend if there is some reluctance and the inquiry consider that they’ve got valuable evidence to give.”
However, under the rules governing statutory public inquiries, any witness has the right to refuse to answer a question or provide a document if to do so would risk incriminating themselves or a spouse
On that basis, a public inquiry into the activities of Epstein on British soil would be “very challenging” if it coincided with ongoing investigations into the sex offender and his links with Andrew.
A former senior Scotland Yard officer said: “I don’t see how a public inquiry could even attempt to call someone like Prince Andrew to give evidence if they were at the same time the subject of a police investigation.
“To do so would create very challenging circumstances for investigators. It is possible within the law but there is a longstanding convention that the criminal process must reach a conclusion before a public inquiry can consider any directly related matters.”
There are nonetheless precedents for public inquiries taking place alongside criminal investigations. The inquiries into the Grenfell Tower fire and the Post Office Horizon IT scandal have heard evidence while there are still ongoing police investigations.
But officers underlined such proceedings require careful co-ordination with police and prosecutors and normally require separation between issues being investigated by officers and those being considered by a public inquiry.
How a public inquiry can impact an ongoing police investigation
Irving said often when there is a large scale public inquiry, the police will wait for it to conclude before making charging decisions, and there are a number of reasons for that.
The main one is that “things might come to light during the course of the public inquiry and the investigations that are undertaken by the inquiry that impact on the police investigation”.
He added: “What they wouldn’t want to happen is to reach a conclusion or or charging decisions and then something comes to light during the course of the public inquiry that causes them to have to reverse any decisions that they’ve made or would impact on on those decisions.”
Former Metropolitan Police officer Graham Wettone said not only would a public inquiry be “hugely costly”, it could also mean survivors of any alleged wrongdoing face a further decade waiting for potential justice. “For me, the criminal investigation has to take primacy,” he said.
Wettone added that authorities would also be weighing up the question of what the objective of a public inquiry would be.
“If it’s to apportion blame and to find who’s at fault, essentially your criminal investigation should be doing that anyway,” Wettone said. “So you’re almost running two investigations at the same time, literally one after each other, and definitely not simultaneously. I can’t see the point in that.”
Embarrassment for royals
Royal experts say the Andrew-Epstein scandal has caused embarrassment for the King, who has sought to publicly distance himself from his younger brother.
Craig Prescott, a lecturer in law, Royal Holloway, University of London, who is writing a book about the royals, said: “You would imagine that any public inquiry would want to take evidence from Andrew and Fergie because they are, along with Lord Mandelson and one or two others, they are, in the UK, the leading figures who are associated with Epstein.”
Prescott added that a public inquiry could be televised, which would bring all of the scandal of Andrew’s friendship with the sex offender back into the spotlight in “the most high-profile way”.
“It would be it would be again further embarrassment and attention for Andrew in particular, but inevitably this does rub off onto the royal family. And there could well be evidence, perhaps, that connects Andrew to Epstein whilst he was a member of the royal family, which would be again embarrassing to say the least for the monarchy as an institution.”
Epstein’s UK links
Numerous allegations have been made about Epstein carrying out sex trafficking crimes in the UK, prompting police forces such as Essex Police to assess flight logs and emails relating to his so-called “Lolita Express” private jet, which operated in and out of Stansted Airport’s terminal for private aircraft.
Epstein maintained friendships with former US ambassador Peter Mandelson and the former duke of York after his conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution. Both men are now the subjects of separate police investigations into misconduct in public office allegations.
Andrew, who was arrested by Thames Valley Police in February and then released, is facing allegations he sent confidential government documents to Jeffrey Epstein while working as a trade envoy. He denies all wrongdoing.
Mandelson is the subject of a Metropolitan Police investigation into allegations he leaked Downing Street emails and market sensitive information to Epstein. He has also denied wrongdoing.
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