A High Court judge has quashed the search warrants used for the February arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and the subsequent searches of his properties.
Thames Valley Police, who are leading the investigation into Andrew’s alleged misconduct in public office, accepted the warrants were unlawful, and separate legal fight over whether police can keep the material they seized is still to come.
Mr Justice Hilliard gave the ruling at the Royal Courts of Justice in London earlier this afternoon, at a hearing the former Prince did not attend. The judge said that quashing the warrants neither brings the investigation to an end nor means the whole of it was unlawful.
Thames Valley Police made the same distinction, saying the agreement ‘is not a judgement on our ongoing investigation’.
The ruling comes from a judicial review brought by Andrew, a process in which a court examines whether a public body acted lawfully, assessing how a decision was made.
What happened in February
The warrants were issued on 18th February by the Recorder of London at the Old Bailey (the Central Criminal Court in London). Andrew was arrested the following day, on his 66th birthday, on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was interviewed under caution and released under investigation.
The arrest followed documents published by the US Department of Justice which suggested he forwarded confidential information to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2010, when he was the UK’s trade envoy. Andrew has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.
Officers began searching his residence on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, and Royal Lodge, his former home in Windsor Great Park, on the same day, taking documents and electronic devices. Police confirmed on 24th February that the searches had ended.
Section eight versus section nine, explained
The warrants and the ruling rest on the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, known as PACE, which sets out police powers in England and Wales, including the power to search premises.
Under section eight, as The Guardian explains, a judge can grant a warrant only if satisfied there are reasonable grounds to suspect the material sought does not include legally-privileged items or what the Act calls ‘special procedure’ material. In plain terms, this second category covers confidential documents held by someone who acquired them through their work, paid or unpaid, under an express or implied promise to keep them confidential.
Thames Valley Police’s position was that it applied for warrants under both section eight and section nine at the Old Bailey hearing the day before the searches; the court decided that ‘only section eight search warrants were needed’ and granted them on that basis.
The High Court has now found otherwise.
The judge said the application itself expressly anticipated legally-privileged material, and that Andrew was likely to hold material that counted as special procedure material. His conclusion that a lawful warrant ‘could only have been issued under section nine’, and the force now accepts the judge who granted the warrants could not have been sure that the section eight conditions were met.
In its own statement, Thames Valley Police said it gave the court all the necessary information and followed the correct legal processes, and accepted that the initial court’s decision to issue the warrants under the legislation used was ‘incorrect’ and conceded it obtained its search powers under the wrong statutory provision. In short: the warrants were granted under section eight, and the court has now found that only section nine was available or ‘legal’.
What happens to the seized material
Quashing the warrants does not automatically mean the seized material – the evidence collected from Andrew’s homes – is handed back. Thames Valley Police said legal proceedings are under way to decide how the material will be managed and whether it can lawfully be kept to support the investigation.
Police have applied to keep it on the basis that it could lawfully have been taken under a different statutory provision, and Andrew opposes the application. Reports suggest this hearing will be held in private in 2027, though it is unclear if the items will remain in police custody while the challenge continues.
Sky News adds that the judge noted there would be little point returning material that could be lawfully seized under another provision.
The challenge came back in July, and has only been made public only now, after police dropped their request to restrict access to documents in the claim, subject to redactions such as officers’ names.