Buckingham Palace was given an archive of 30,000 emails six years ago that would have shown Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was sharing confidential government information while serving as a trade envoy, court documents suggest.
The emails, taken from a personal business contact of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor, were handed over to the Lord Chamberlain, the most senior officer in the Royal Household, in May 2020.
A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace said: “Since there is an ongoing police enquiry concerning Mr Mountbatten-Windsor, it is not possible to provide any comment on these matters.”
Last week it emerged that Thames Valley Police detectives investigating the former Duke of York will consider allegations of sexual misconduct in their inquiry into potential misconduct in public office. Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was originally arrested on his 66th birthday in February on suspicion of misconduct in a public office following allegations that he passed sensitive government information to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein while employed as a government trade envoy.
Court documents seen by The Independent and the BBC show a large cache of emails was sent to palace officials years before the current inquiries began. The contents of the emails, for a number of years dated up to June 2013, are not fully known. The emails had been the subject of a legal dispute between Kevin Stanford with Jonathan and David Rowland, the latter of whom was referred to by Mr Mountbatten-Windsor as his “trusted money man” in emails to Epstein released by the US Department of Justice.
A High Court judgment in April 2021 revealed that a "copy of the archive" had been provided to the "Lord Chamberlain in May 2020". In June 2022, a second High Court ruling referred to an email, dated 10 July 2020, which said the emails had been "delivered to Buckingham Palace". Mr Stanford also offered to provide it to the authorities in Monaco and Luxembourg, according to the documents.
This would have been after the former Duke of York stepped down as a working royal following a controversial BBC Newsnight interview in November 2019. Mr Mountbatten-Windsor served as trade envoy from 2001 to 2011. The emails sent to the palace came from the account of British businessman Jonathan Rowland, after they were taken and given to Mr Stanford by a former employee of the Rowland family.
Mr Stanford, the former majority owner of the fashion chain All Saints, had been engaged in a separate dispute over investments in the failed Kaupthing Bank, linked to Rowland’s father, David.
It comes after The Telegraph reported Mr Mountbatten-Windsor had requested a confidential briefing from the Treasury in 2010 about the financial crisis in Iceland. The newspaper said the emails it obtained showed the former prince had shared these details with Jonathan Rowland, passing on the information “before you make your move”.
The previous year, David Rowland had taken over the Luxembourg arm of Kaupthing Bank, which later became Banque Havilland and faced sanctions from regulators in the UK and the EU. The BBC said Jonathan Rowland had previously confirmed that the messages had been obtained from his account as part of legal proceedings.
In 2020, the position of Lord Chamberlain was held by Lord Peel. The role, according to the Royal Family website, involves “overseeing the conduct and general business of the Royal Household”.
Thames Valley Police said: "We are aware of the allegations circulating in the public domain and encourage anyone with relevant information to get in touch."
The Independent has contacted Mr Mountbatten-Windsor for comment.
