Andrew charged taxpayers for massage when envoy, claim ex-civil servants

Just nowSean CoughlanRoyal correspondent

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Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor charged taxpayers for massages and excessive travel costs while working as the UK’s trade envoy, whistleblowing retired civil servants have claimed.

One former civil servant, who worked in the UK’s trade department in the early 2000s, had been so annoyed by Andrew’s request to cover the cost of “massage services” that he’d refused to pay it, but says he was overruled by senior staff.

“I thought it was wrong… I’d said we mustn’t pay it, but we ended up paying it anyway,” he told the BBC, about a claim that followed a visit by Andrew to the Middle East.

The Department for Business and Trade has not challenged the claim about Andrew’s time as envoy, between 2001 and 2011, but has referred to the ongoing police investigation into the former prince.

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The BBC approached Andrew for a response to these claims. He has always rejected any wrongdoing in his associations with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein and denied any personal gain from his role as trade envoy.

Andrew’s role as trade representative was unpaid, but he had the support of civil servants and taxpayer funding for his overseas trips.

In the wake of the revelations in the Epstein files, the former civil servant, who worked for the former UK Trade and Investment department, says he regrets that Andrew was allowed to get away with expenses for a massage, when it might have been a chance to check his behaviour.

“I can’t say it would have stopped him, but we should have flagged that something was wrong,” says the retired civil servant.

Another source, a former senior Whitehall official, backs up the claim. This former civil servant, who oversaw finances in this area, had seen similar expenses for Andrew’s trips and says he has “absolutely no doubt” about its authenticity.

Both of the former civil servants wanted to remain anonymous, but have separately spoken to the BBC about their claims. The BBC has not seen proof of the claim about charging for massages from over 20 years ago. But the BBC has seen documentary evidence of the whistleblowers’ closeness to this area at the time.

And there is nothing unlawful suggested in Andrew’s behaviour.

The former civil servants had independently stepped forward, initially contacting the author Andrew Lownie, who is updating his biography of Andrew, Entitled. They then also agreed to share their testimony with the BBC.

One of the ex-civil servants told the BBC that he’d come forward to Lownie after he’d heard the author saying that no-one inside government had raised concerns – when the civil servant wanted to make clear there had been attempts to discuss this but they had been ignored.

The former senior Whitehall official said he had been shocked by the scale of Andrew’s lavish spending as envoy, including what he thought were excessive flights and unreasonable numbers of hotels rooms and charges for his entourage.

“I couldn’t believe it… it was like it wasn’t real money, they weren’t spending any of their own money,” said the senior official, who said that even though he had a responsibility for finance in his own role, there seemed to be little control on spending or proper record keeping.

He says costs disappeared into different budgets, making them hard to trace, and there was little certainty over who had been in Andrew’s entourage.

The former senior Whitehall official blames the deference he personally saw being shown to the then Prince Andrew by very senior civil servants and their reluctance to challenge him.

Checks on Andrew’s trips were given a “rubber stamp”, he recalls, rather than any scrutiny.

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There have been previous claims about Andrew’s liking for massages.

In a US court statement, a former employee of Epstein in Florida, Juan Alessi, claimed that Andrew had a “daily massage” when he visited.

Emails about Epstein have revealed a ledger with a list of payments for massages for an “Andrew”.

It’s not known if that is the former Prince Andrew.

Lownie’s biography, Entitled, also claims that on an overseas visit Andrew asked an ambassador to arrange a massage for him.

One of the civil servants speaking out says there were mixed experiences of Andrew on visits. He says he could be “good company” and entertaining, but on other occasions he had seen Andrew “shouting, being rude and generally offensive”.

Lownie has complained about the lack of publicly available information about Andrew’s time as trade envoy, to cast light on claims about the role.

The author has had multiple Freedom of Information requests rejected, including on the grounds that it would be too time-consuming for government departments to go through the volume of information.

Suggesting the scale of the unexplored files on Andrew, one rejection said that one year of his time as trade envoy would mean going through 1,927 digital files, each containing multiple pieces of information.

MPs on the Business and Trade Committee will meet later this week to discuss launching an inquiry into the role of trade envoys and their accountability.

Another former UKTI senior civil servant, now retired, told the BBC that when Andrew was a trade representative he could sometimes disrupt rather than support efforts to boost UK trade.

“Andrew was seen as a liability. He went off script, he thought he was an expert, when he wasn’t. He thought he was funny, when he was being rude to people,” said the former civil servant.

It could take months of effort by overseas teams to prepare for one of his visits – only for it to produce a negative impact, says the former UKTI official.

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When based in a sensitive Middle Eastern posting, the former official said he had worked hard to prevent the then Prince Andrew from visiting, coming up with excuses to delay attempted visits.

But the former UKTI official said there had been a reluctance to speak out about Andrew, in case it damaged careers.

“No one would complain, it wouldn’t help your reputation,” he said.

The Department for Business and Trade has not challenged the “massage services” claim, but has made the point that Andrew was the “UK Special Representative for International Trade and Investment” and it was a different role from today’s trade envoys.

Envoys are now usually MPs and peers, appointed by ministers, and with a formalised set of rules of conduct, which did not apply at the time of Andrew’s time as a trade representative.

A spokesperson for the department has also pointed to the ongoing police investigation into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

On Thursday, Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested by Thames Valley Police on suspicion of misconduct in public office, but has not faced charges.

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