Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office | Hacker News Reader

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office

bbc.com

70 pointsasdefghyk49 comments

The last time the Duke of York was arrested was in 1483. And before that, the most recent prior was in 1452 during the War of the Roses.

Blimey, he's older than he looks.

I wonder, does the streak technically still continues? As he was stripped of his titles.

Yeah it requires an act of parliament to scrap the Duke title, neither the King nor voluntary resignation can do that

I stand corrected.

Series 7 of The Crown will be fun.

As always when reading about these stories I have two questions:

* When did other high profile people know about this illegal and immoral behavior

* Who else is getting away with similar behavior right now

1 - Assume it was decades ago. That I've heard, a fair number of the released emails mentioned Jeff's 2008 conviction. But to paraphrase Leona Helmsley, "only the little people need to follow laws". That attitude seems to be very common in the emails.

2 - Isn't it convenient that zero major news organizations - controlled by high profile people and their buddies - are raising that issue? Not that I believe there to be any public support for competent & systematic enforcement of the laws against such behavior. That I've heard of, nobody even cares about how Jeff got off with a slap on the wrist in 2008.

I also kinda have the question of: Who is the new Jeffrey Epstein?

Nature abhors a vacuum, and it seems the space that Epstein filled was large and branching and significantly profitable (in money, information, and influence). There's no way there isn't at least one other person that's started to fill the void.

Ideally, the ramifications of association with Epstein should shrink the size of the vacuum considerably, but the pursuit of those associates has really only just started and, as someone else has already pointed out, some countries / governments are protecting these associates rather than investigating / prosecuting. As such, there's not much discouragement yet.

It's unfortunately very possible that someone else is filling the "bring underage girls to rich guys" part (seriously, we have to "teach this fantasy out" for most little boys) ; but it might be someone more discrete, with a smaller network, and who will not merge the "socialite businessmen" persona with the "pimp for the rich" persona.

Also, it might be an anomaly that one person has a very big network ; maybe it's usually more of a "small adjacent networks".

So it would be like asking "who replaced pablo escobar or bernard madoff". The answer is (unfortunately) very likely not "no-one" ; but it might very well be "not one".

The royal family really doesn't want to answer questions about what they knew and when about the trafficking. So instead they'll just get rid of him with a lesser less implicating charge.

I think this is a misreading of the situation. He’s being arrested because of recently uncovered evidence that he committed a crime. We can all form our own opinions on whether or not Andrew committed rape and/or sexual abuse (without too much difficulty, I assume), but this crime looks like it ought to be a lot easier to prosecute.

It's easy for the royal family to say they didn't know he sent an email. It's hard for them to say they didn't know about the girls, due to their security. This way only andrew goes down.

I think this is a very implausible take for two reasons.

First, the King doesn't have that kind of power over the justice system in the UK. He cannot choose when, whether or why Andrew is arrested.

Second, Andrew's arrest is a negative news story for the royal family, not a positive one. Their ideal scenario would have been one where the Andrew/Epstein story gradually dropped out of the news cycle following the stripping of Andrew's royal titles. This arrest, and likely subsequent trial, are just going to keep it in the news for months or years to come.

First, the King approved the arrest because the family has veto power over all actions that effect them. Same happened when they tried to tax the family years ago.

This is a limited hang out negative story. The important thing for the family is that only andrew is implicated not the family as a whole.

The King doesn't have veto powers over arrests of members of the royal family, and he was not notified before the arrest.

In general, members of the Royal Family do pay taxes, so I'm not sure what you're referring to there. (The sovereign and Prince of Wales are exempt by law, but they have paid tax voluntarily since 1993.)

The crime he was arrested for carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, but I doubt anyone has ever been given that sentence. It's fodder for the masses to think it's a serious crime

It would be lovely if the Brits could truly clean house on this issue.

(Sadly, expecting the Yanks to follow their lead on that would be pure fantasy.)

He was in Greggs at the time.

It was Pizza Express.

It is unreal to me that all the criminal prosecution is only happening to Brits. Ghislaine Maxwell, Prince Andrew, likely Peter Mandelson.

In the US..? Epstein tragically was committed suicide, and no other cases are forthcoming.

Why has Andrew not been extradited to USA.?

Any commoner would have been sent "quick smart" to face the accusations there in court?

The obvious explanation is that none of the men who abused girls via their relationship with Epstein are being prosecuted in the USA. So why should it be surprising that Andrew is not?

"...The obvious explanation is that none of the men who abused girls via their relationship with Epstein are being prosecuted in the USA...."

That's my question too. Why not. Seems they are protected.

Right, but they're not protected by being members of the British Royal Family. So it doesn't seem necessary to appeal to that factor as part of the explanation for why Andrew has not been prosecuted in the US.

Ghislaine Maxwell, has said she had never saw Epstein do anything untoward.... She now says, she’ll tell everything?? in exchange for immunity.

This is how it is done! But it could only have been done with the King's permission. I wonder how he will spin it.

I think there is a lot more of this story to play out ...

Still seems to be lots more to play out.

Example - Why all the supposed "...rich and powerful names ...." being seemingly protected ?

What do they have to hide ?

The thing about a lot of monarchical powers in the UK is that the monarch gets to keep them, provided of course that they only ever use them as prescribed by the government. As to what happens otherwise, well, Charles III won't want to emulate Charles I.

(I'm kind of amazed he chose that name, tbh; it's not particularly uncommon for British monarchs to rename themselves on taking the throne, and it has... baggage.)

While Charles I was a disaster, Charles II is remembered as a patron of the arts and sciences. He restored the British navy, which went on to be the foundation of the Empire.

His personal life was rather too colorful, but a lot of people seem to think positively of that.

I doubt he's anybody's favorite monarch, but his well-respected mother seems to have thought the name was OK.

Official statements have been released that clearly state the King was not informed prior to the arrest.

I can't for one minute imagine no one asked "if one were to suspect a member of royal family of [...] and arrested them, what would the King say?"

The answer is obvious. The King would have no choice but to say what he has in fact said (i.e. that the ordinary process of the law must be followed).

And there's one thing we've learnt recently is that royals do not lie

The Police don’t need the King’s permission to arrest members of the royal family.

And this is of course tech related because??? If I wanted news I would just check my RSS feed.

Is email evidence of misconduct in high office suitably "tech"?

https://jmail.world/thread/vol00009-efta00751685-pdf?view=in...

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA007516...

I'd suggest, their is intellectual curiosity about how the rich and powerful seem to be treated differently.

Consider , others accused of such crimes, would be very quickly to court to face accusers before a judge, but in the this case it has not happened? Why?

Seems to be some unspoken protection between others?

They're purposefully being vague, but this is Prince Andrew finally facing consequences in the face of the Epstein files (?)

How is it vague? If you mean by not saying 'Prince Andrew', that's because he's already been stripped of that title.

Former prince. And t's not purposefully vague, the article explicitly says "It comes after Thames Valley Police said they were assessing a complaint over the alleged sharing of confidential material by the former prince with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein"

If you read through the BBC post, it alludes to passing confidential trade documents to Epstein... but of course that's probably because he was being blackmailed by Epstein for f*cking under age girls.

Who said blackmailed? They were friends, it was just a guy giving another guy insider information about a business opportunity.

You can't arrest someone for the "probably" conjecture of the latter, but you can arrest them if you have tangible proof of the former.

He's being prosecuted for sharing sensitive information with 3rd parties or something. He was in some cushy foreign envoy type job back then, and it seems he did not really take it very seriously. In the epstein files there is evidence that he regularly shared sensitive information with JE and others.

He's not being prosecuted for raping kids. But maybe new evidence comes to light during this investigation.

Meanwhile in the States, their government is doxxing the victims and masking the identities of the perpetrators.

The abuse perpetratored by Epstein is obviously hideous but is there an argument that his corporate and government espionage activities need to be looked at as a clear organized criminal conspiracy?

They got Al Capone on tax fraud

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office

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