Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been accused of charging taxpayers for massages during his stint as UK trade envoy by whistleblower civil servants. One retired trade department employee said the former duke‘s request for “massage service” expenses to be covered by the Government in the early 2000s had been green-lit by his superiors, despite concerns being raised. “I thought it was wrong… I’d said we mustn’t pay it, but we ended up paying it anyway,” he told the BBC.
Another former Whitehall official told the broadcaster that he had been shocked by the extent of Andrew’s extravagant spending while on trips in his capacity as envoy, including multiple hotel rooms and flights. He said: “I couldn’t believe it… it was like it wasn’t real money, they weren’t spending any of their own money.”
The ex-civil servant, who initially contacted Andrew Lownie, a royal biographer who is updating his book about King Charles’ younger brother in the wake of his arrest last week, said he regrets that Andrew was allowed to get away with the extravagant expenses.
“I can’t say it would have stopped him, but we should have flagged that something was wrong,” he said.
The former prince, whose titles were stripped by the King last year, was arrested on Thursday, February 19, on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
He spent 11 hours in custody on his 66th birthday after allegations that he shared sensitive information with Jeffrey Epstein during his time as trade envoy from 2001 to 2011.
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Detectives continued searches of Andrew’s former home, Royal Lodge in Windsor, over the weekend as part of an investigation led by Thames Valley Police.
Searches are expected to continue into Monday, and calls have grown from a number of public figures for a wider probe into his past dealings with the paedophile financier.
The Government has said it will consider introducing the necessary Act of Parliament once the police investigation has concluded.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.express.co.uk ’
