Do you think Andrew will face any criminal charges?

[LotsInCommon]

I’m only now reading Virginias book and it’s a very difficult read.

It’s 7 months on from Andrews arrest for misconduct in public office. Do you think he will be charged with anything to do with that? Do you think he’ll be charged with sexual abuse and rape?

Btw for those not familiar this cache of emails was received by the palace in May 2020

Long before the current police investigation.

Does it make me a conspiracy theorist to think the issues with the search warrant seem unlikely to have happened accidentally? I mean, it's obvious that AMW would have access to very expensive lawyers who would be poring over everything in forensic detail to find errors.

All reports state that the emails were received by the ‘lord chamberlain’ ie head of royal household .

I haven't argued that.

We know there was an archive of 30,000 emails, taken from Jonathan Rowlands' account, which was the subject of a legal dispute.
The emails date up to 2013, and a copy of the archive was sent to the Lord Chamberlain in 2020.

The article says that the court documents refer to the copy of the archive being sent to him.
It does not say that the archive of emails was sent from the court, and later in the article it refers to a business rival of Jonathan Rowlands, Kevin Stanford, obtaining the emails from the person who originally took them. He then sent them to different places.
Court documents say that Stanford offered the archive of emails to the authorities in Monaco and Luxembourg, and shared them with a number of people, including the Lord Chamberlain...
Stanford also shared some of the emails with a journalist, the judgment says.

My question is: When the Lord Chamberlain received an archive of emails (from Jonathan Rowlands' account, remember) with AMW's name on them, from a random businessman who had no right to have it, did he look at them in any detail?
Or did he simply forward them to the (then) Duke of York's office to deal with? Perhaps with advice to have the legal team look at them?

We know they were sent to the Lord Chamberlain by Kevin Stanford. We don't know what happened after that.

This kind is the kind of mistake that happens all the time in the criminal justice system. The police have not been forced to hand back any of the material they have found. Whilst there will be a hearing next year to make the final decision, it is likely they will still be able to keep the material. So what would be the point of the judge deliberately getting the search warrant wrong? Highly unlikely. Cock up is far more likely than conspiracy.

Well obviously they’ll be poring over the documents. It’s their job.

I’d be poring over documents with the same vigour, whether it’s AMW or Joe Bloggs. It would have been my job, irrespective of who it is.

People are human and mistakes happen. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a big fat conspiracy. It may be here, but equally not necessarily.

Where are they now ? What was done with them ? Were they given to authorities if irregularities were claimed or suspected ?

They went apparently to the head of the royal household.

The Palace (despite being increasingly quick to action when it comes to C3's rep) can't possibly comment on what happened thereafter.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/may/30/palace-was-given-emails-about-andrews-trade-envoy-activities-six-years-ago-report-says

He's been cavorting with the lot of them since Newsnight.

'He's his own man' W did realise the danger and try to redirect the narrative but far too late.

My question is: When the Lord Chamberlain received an archive of emails (from Jonathan Rowlands' account, remember) with AMW's name on them, from a random businessman who had no right to have it, did he look at them in any detail?
Or did he simply forward them to the (then) Duke of York's office to deal with? Perhaps with advice to have the legal team look at them?

No.

And then yes.

It's always a cover up. If we start from that point, we can go down or up

It's always a cover up.

Yep.

And always fought on the back foot 🙃

This is all very odd and confusing. I can’t get my head around it!

At what point does a stash of emails like that, you can’t really overlook 30,000 of them very easily, become officially verified as “evidence” or “worthy of inspection” and by whom?

As far as I understand it, @Chocolatethumbprints, there has to be already some grounds for suspicion (hence an application for a search warrant); the police cannot simply turn up at anyone's house and search on the off-chance that there is evidence of wrongdoing.

Once a warrant is approved, they can then search for evidence of the crime that they suspect has been committed.
This was where the difference between approval for PACE section 8 and section 9 came in - if they only had approval for section 8, they would not be able to remove documents that were 'subject to legal privilege' or 'excluded material' or 'special procedure material' - which might have applied to information obtained by AMW in his role as trade envoy.

(As far as this particular archive is concerned, it was a stolen archive of Jonathan Rowland's emails, some of which were from AMW, some of which apparently included privileged information on Iceland's banking industry. We do not know how relevant the rest of the emails might be to the current case.)

Sorry, duplicate post

I’m surprised by this as I seem to recall Lownie saying that he and The Sun got wind of exactly the same amounts but from two entirely different sources.

He described the payments as a series of personal loans from senior members of the RF amounting to £12 million which AMW has not paid back.

I wasn’t aware that the Sun on Sunday had lowered their estimated figure.

Lownie states that QE2 loaned the bulk of it, as she allegedly provided £7 million. And separately, QE2 also provided an estimated £2 million directly to Giuffre's sex trafficking charity, Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (SOAR), as part of the overall agreement.

Prince Philip allegedly contributed a £3 million loan and the then Prince Charles allegedly contributed a £1.5 million loan to round out the needed amount, although he subsequently denied or distanced himself from directly funding AMW’s settlement once the details began leaking to the press.

I am not surprised however that there are stories circulating that try to diminish the sum or discredit the accuracy of Lownie’s reports as this is a very important piece of information that ties the AMW scandal directly to the heart of the monarchy.

The timing is interesting too as the pay off was made in March 2022 and the late Queen died in September of the same year, and by all accounts, being seriously ill, had handed over the majority of her duties to Charles by then.

Timing also does seems interesting if the payment was made in March 2022 and Philip, who loaned 3 million toward it, died in April 2021.

Thank you very much bluegreygreen

I think I have finally got a handle on the warrants issue now.

What I meant was, regarding the 30,000 emails, which were stolen and are highly confidential, who specifically is responsible for confirming their veracity, is there a legal obligation to pass them to police as evidence if they indicate that crimes have been committed, and by whom, and at what stage, did this verification take place, if indeed it has?

Yes Prince Philip died nearly a year before the settlement was officially finalised and paid, but various newspaper reports indicate that the financial arrangements and multi-million pound loans from the private estates of Philip and QE2 were structured or pledged in advance to avoid a public trial.

Ah - I see what you mean. Sorry, I was on the wrong track.

I don't know.
Your questions are parallel to mine, I think.

If you, as Lord Chamberlain, are landed in 2020 with an archive of emails stolen from Jonathan Rowland's email account, sent to you by Stanford (a business rival of Rowland), and you know that AMW does business with the Rowlands, what do you do with the emails?
I suspect it depends on what Stanford tells you.
I assume if he doesn't tell you much, you forward them to AMW and tell him to sort it, with or without lawyers.
If he does tell you something, you seek legal advice yourself. What the legal advice is (or any legal obligation) would depend what is in the emails.

Surely that would have created an issue with IHT.

Which there is no record Philip paying, presumed to be because of the consort-sovereign transfer which exempted his estate completely.

That will be an interesting one for historians to get their teeth into after the 90 year will sealing is up (presuming it is unsealed).

Thx again!

Yes I see. I think 🤔 It’s all so hugely complex!

Given that we wouldn’t have known about their existence if it wasn’t for a court case, and that the Lord Chamberlain first received them in 2020, it doesn’t really fill one with confidence that they are suddenly going to re-appear!

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58587147

Yes indeed!

The very senior judge in the case in his summing up said that he had come to the decision he did because it’s not in the public interest to see private wills of individual members of the RF and their dignity has to be protected.

While I can understand that argument to a degree, I think the public interest with regard to the AMW-VG pay off is very legitimate indeed!

Also, it could be argued more widely that the tax avoidance aspects are of legitimate interest to the public too.

Sorry, quote didn’t appear; my post is in response to Bluegreygreen’s of 01:02

And some posters try to say that republican posters here asking legitimate questions are somehow a threat to the UK

I genuinely do not remember ever seeing such ‘threat’ accusations on this board. I know I’ve been ill lately, but as a mild-mannered republican I think I’d recall something as bizarre as that.

Wow, whole police forces or the odd individual? Is it a cult thing or the odd bad apple?

I don’t remember the poster or the thread for the most recent example of this line from royalists but maybe the PR thread ? A week ago at most .

It was repeated over several posts that republicans asking questions were destabilising the uk and either were undercover agents or were doing their bidding . Yes I know.

That Andrew MW is being investigated for leaking state secrets didn’t seem to figure in that line of thinking.

@bluegreygreen

You seem confused .
This article sets it out

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy02j5pl98no