Former Prince Andrew wins legal challenge over Epstein-linked home searches

Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Royal Banana

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Ajay Suresh · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Justice Nicholas Hilliard of the High Court in London quashed search warrants that Thames Valley Police used to raid the Sandringham and Royal Lodge homes of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, ruling the warrants were granted on the wrong legal basis. The police force conceded the error, but the judge was explicit that quashing the warrants does not end the investigation or require the seized material to be returned.

Mountbatten-Windsor, arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office and released without charge, brought the challenge himself, in what is reportedly the first time in centuries a royal has contested criminal proceedings in court. Buckingham Palace, meanwhile, kept its distance, warning him off using the king's private funds to pay for the fight.

Separate proceedings will now decide whether police can keep and use the seized material anyway, meaning the procedural win changes little about the substance of the ongoing misconduct investigation tied to his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A man can beat the paperwork and still be standing in the same spot he started in, and that is about where this leaves things. The police got the form wrong, said so plainly, and kept every box of material they hauled out the door anyway. Call it a win if you like, the kind where you keep your hat but the sheriff still has your truck.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Royal Banana · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0