Speaker 1: Welcome back to thrilling Threads. I have to say, usually
when we sit down to record, we have a pretty
general idea of where the world is heading. We've got
our stack of papers, we have our coffee, and we're
looking at things in the past tense. But every once
in a while, the news cycle just it just freezes,
it completely stops, yeah, and you realize you're watching history
unfold in real time.
Speaker 2: It is rare, but that recent breaking news was certainly
one of those days where you know, you remember exactly
where you were when the notification popped up on your phone.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, if you were anywhere near a screen, you saw it.
Breaking news banners, frantic reporters standing outside a very famous
estate in the rain, and a headline that frankly looked
like it belonged in a like a movie script or
a season finale of a drama, not on the BBC.
Speaker 2: It's the kind of headline that historians will be analyzing
fifty years from now. I mean, it shifts the entire
paradigm of what we think is possible within a constitutional
monarchy exactly.
Speaker 1: We are talking, of course, about the arrest of the
man formerly known as Prince Andrew. Now officially Andrew moult
Batten windsor right British police, specifically the Thames Valley Police
rolling up to the Sandrigam estate and arresting the King's
brother and on his sixty sixth birthday.
Speaker 2: No less, the irony of that timing is well, it's certainly.
Speaker 1: Not lost on anyone, no, not at all.
Speaker 2: But beyond the irony, the stakes here are astronomically high.
We aren't talking about a tabloid scandal anymore. We aren't
talking about, you know, civil lawsuits in America where you
can just settle out of court right with a passing
check exactly. We are talking about a criminal arrest on
British soil for misconduct in public office.
Speaker 1: Which that phrase misconduct in public office, it sounds so bureaucratic,
doesn't it It does.
Speaker 2: It sounds like an HR violation.
Speaker 1: Like someone filed the wrong tax form or used the
wrong ink on a building permit. But as we dug
into the source material for this deep dive into the
watch Mojo reporting, it became really clear that.
Speaker 2: This is this is heavy, It's extremely heavy.
Speaker 1: This is serious.
Speaker 2: It is a common law offense that carries a maximum
penalty of life imprisonment, life life. Now we need to
be careful with that. Maximums are ceilings, they're not predictions,
but it signals that the authorities are looking at a
fundamental abuse of power. It's the charge you use when
the breach of trust is so severe it literally breaks
the system.
Speaker 1: Exactly. So for you listening, here is our mission for
today's deep dies into the source material. We are going
to pull on every single loose thread of this story.
Speaker 2: And there are a lot of them, so many.
Speaker 1: We're going to look at the arrest itself, what actually
went down at Sandringham. We're going to decode that specific
charge and why they chose it, because the legal strategy
is fascinating.
Speaker 2: And perhaps most importantly, we need to connect the dots
back to the catalyst for all of this, the United
States Department of Justice and the Epstein files that dropped
back in January.
Speaker 1: Right, because that is where the narrative shifts from just
a sleazy personal life to potential state corruption. We've got goal,
we've got uranium, government reports from Vietnam and China, and
a global fallout that reaches all the way to the
Norwegian royal family. It is quite literally a thriller coming
to life. So are you ready to see if anyone
is truly above the law?
Speaker 2: I am very ready. Let's unravel this.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's start with the scene on the ground, the
location Sandraham. Now, for those of you listening who don't
follow the daily movements of the royals or haven't watched
the crown paint the picture for us, why does this
specific location matter so much?
Speaker 2: Context is everything here? Sandringham isn't a state palace like
Buckingham Palace. Buckingham Palace is effectively a giant office building.
Speaker 1: It's a workplace exactly.
Speaker 2: And it's not a fortress like Windsor. Sandrangham is in Norfolk.
It is the private country retreat of the monarch. It's
supposed to be a sanctuary. It's where the family goes
to shoot pheasants, walk the dogs and just pretend to
be normal country aristocrat.
Speaker 1: Right. It's the holiday home, the safe space.
Speaker 2: Precisely, and it's where Andrew has been living. Remember he
was effectively removed from his home in Windsor, the Royal Lodge,
after years of wrangling and the King really wanting him
to downsize.
Speaker 1: I remember that whole saga.
Speaker 2: Right, So Sanjongham was the retreat. It was the place
he went to hide from the public eye.
Speaker 1: And then suddenly that Thames Valley Police show up. I
mean the visual of that is staggering. You have the
King's private estate, usually guarded by elite royal protection officers,
suddenly being breached by an external police force.
Speaker 2: And notice the unit involved here, pemes Valley Police. They
aren't the local Norfolk Constabulary. Oh really Yeah, Thames Valley
covers Berkshire, which is where Windsor is. This implies that
the investigation originated from his time at Windsor Or. It's
being led by a specialist unit that operates out of
that jurisdiction. They didn't just knock on the door, they
executed a highly coordinated raid.
Speaker 1: Wow. And the official statement they released was incredibly dry.
Wasn't it just a man in his sixties from Norfolk?
Speaker 2: That is standard police procedure in the UK. They rarely
name a suspect upon arrest unless there is an imminent
threat to the public, like an actor shooter or something exactly.
But the description a man in his sixties from Norfolk,
coupled with the location of the search, it left zero
room for doubt it's the Voldemort treatment. Everyone knew who
they were talking about instantly.
Speaker 1: He who must not be named. Yeah, it's surreal to
think about it. I mean, usually when the police are
involved with the royal family, it's minor. It's stuff we
chuckle about in the tabloids.
Speaker 2: Right we think of Princess Anne getting a fine because
her dog attacks someone in the park. Yes, or perhaps
Prince Philip God Rest his soul, having that car crash
a few years back near Sandringham.
Speaker 1: M hm.
Speaker 2: Those are civil matters, minor infractions, traffic stops. Yeah, this
a raid on a royal estate for a serious criminal inquiry.
Robert Jobson, a veteran royal commentator who usually has a
very steady hand on them these things, put it best.
He called it truly.
Speaker 1: Historic because it's never happened in the modern era.
Speaker 2: Never. We are in completely uncharted waters. The visual alone
police cars entering the gates of Sangraingham, not to protect
the occupant, but to arrest him. It shatters the mystique
of the monarchy in a way that is hard to
even quantify.
Speaker 1: It really bridges that gap between the Crown as this
divine institution and the individual as just a regular subject.
Speaker 2: Of the law exactly.
Speaker 1: But we do have to clarify for the listeners. He
hasn't been officially charged yet. Right at the moment of
the arrest. The phrasing was on suspicion.
Speaker 2: That is a crucial distinction and we need to be
very precise here. In the British legal system, and arrest
allows the police to detain a suspect. It brings them
into the system. It allows them to question the suspect
under caution, meaning anything they say can be used in evidence.
It also allows them to secure evidence.
Speaker 1: What explains the searches. They didn't just arrest him. They
search the premises exactly.
Speaker 2: There's properties in Berkshire and Norfolk. By arresting him, they
can seize laptops, phones, hard drives, physical documents. If they
just asked him to come in for a friendly chat voluntarily,
he could theoretically delete emails or shred papers while they
were waiting. The arrest preserves the integrity of the investigation.
But you are right, it is not a conviction and
it is not yet a formal charge filed by the
Crown Prosecution Service.
Speaker 1: But you don't raid Sandringham on a hunch. You don't
kick down the King's door unless you are absolutely sure
you have something.
Speaker 2: Precisely, the threshold for authorizing this operation would have been
incredibly high. A judge would have had to sign off
on those warrants. The Chief Constable would be heavily involved.
Speaker 1: They know the whole world is watching.
Speaker 2: They do, and if they get this wrong, heads will roll,
careers will end. So the fact that they moved at
all suggests they have something very substantial.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what something substantial looks like. Mentioned
the term earlier misconduct in public office. When I first
read that in the watch Mojo report, I thought, Okay,
did he yell at a butler? Did he misuse the
Royal credit card for a pizza? Right?
Speaker 2: The Pizza Express defense?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you're telling me it's much darker and legally
much more complex than that.
Speaker 2: It is much more systemic. Misconduct in public office is
a fascinating charge because it's not a statutory offense.
Speaker 1: What does that mean.
Speaker 2: It means it's not written in a specific act of
Parliament like the Theft Act or the Fraud Act. It's
a common law offense. That means it has evolved through
centuries of judges making rulings.
Speaker 1: This is really old school law, very old school.
Speaker 2: And because it's common law, it's flexible. But to make
the charge actually stick, the prosecution has to prove four
very specific elements. We can call them the four threads
of the case.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unspool these threads for the audience. What is
thread won?
Speaker 2: First, the defendant must be a public officer acting as such. Now,
this is where the defense might start fighting immediately. Andrew
is or was a prince? Is being a prince a
public office? Or is it just a birthright?
Speaker 1: That's a really good point. You don't apply for a
job to be a prince, you don't get hired. You're
just born into it.
Speaker 2: Correct. However, for years amerweld a very specific, taxpayer funded role.
From two thousand and one all the way to twenty eleven,
he served as the United Kingdom's Special Representative for International
Trade and.
Speaker 1: Investment, the Trade Envoy. I remember this era. He was
basically the UK's super salesman, flying around the world, going
to banquets, trying to get countries to buy British goods.
Speaker 2: Exactly. That role had a specific job description, it had
government funding, it had a mandate to represent British interests abroad.
So in the context of his work as Trade envoy,
he was absolutely a public officer.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Thread one, was he a public officer? The
answer is almost certainly yes.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: What's thread too?
Speaker 2: There must be a willful breach of duty. This speaks
to intent. It cannot be an accident. You can't just
be incompetent at your job. You have to know you
are doing something wrong, or at least be recklessly indifferent
to the consequences.
Speaker 1: Lessly indifferent that feels like a phrase that could describe
a lot of his decisions over the last decade.
Speaker 2: It certainly fits the pattern of behavior we've seen publicly,
but legally they have to prove he knew or should
have known, that sharing specific information was wrong.
Speaker 1: Got it re Read Three?
Speaker 2: The misconduct must be an abuse of the public's trust.
This is really the moral core of the law. The
public gave you power, access and status to help them.
If you use it to help yourself or to help
your private friends, you are abusing that trust. It's about
the betrayal of the office itself.
Speaker 1: And the final thread.
Speaker 2: The conduct must be serious enough to deserve criminal punishment.
This separates it from a mere disciplinary issue. If you
show up late to a meeting as trade envoy, or
if you are rude to a foreign diplomat, that's bad.
Speaker 1: You might get fired, but you won't go to jails.
Speaker 2: Exactly, it's not criminal to be misconduct in public office.
It has to be egregious, it has to be a
literal affront to the state.
Speaker 1: He reflects that severity. You mentioned life imprisonment earlier.
Speaker 2: That is the maximum. And again I want to stress
for the listeners. If he is charged and convicted, it
is highly unlikely a judge would give a first time
offender life imprisonment. But the fact that life is the
ceiling tells you how the law of views this crime.
It puts it in the exact same bracket as serious corruption,
espionage or major fraud. It's a system saying you broke
the machine.
Speaker 1: It's not about ordinary bad behavior, it's not about having
gross friends. It's about abusive power.
Speaker 2: It connects his behavior directly to his role as a
servant of the UK, and that brings us to the
question everyone is asking today, why now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he stepped down his trade envoy in twenty eleven.
That's fifteen years ago. Why are the police arresting him
in twenty twenty six?
Speaker 2: And the answer to that lies in the massive document
dump from the US, doesn't it. It's the transatlantic connection.
Speaker 1: It does. We have to look at the catalyst. Without
the US Department of Justice, this rate at Sandringham simply
never happens.
Speaker 2: Let's unpack this for you, guys. January twenty twenty six,
the DOJ releases a new batch of Epstein related material.
Now we've had releases.
Speaker 1: Before, plenty of them.
Speaker 2: Usually they are socialists, flight logs, actor X was on
the plane, politician, why was that the island?
Speaker 1: It's embarrassing for those people, but often that's not actual
proof of a crime.
Speaker 2: For the guest, right, being on a plane with a
bad person isn't illegal in itself. It's terrible judgment. But
the January twenty twenty six release changed the texture of
the evidence completely. We stopped looking at social diaries and
we started looking at business records because.
Speaker 1: Suddenly we weren't reading about massages or private island trips.
We're reading about government reports.
Speaker 2: Correct. The sources highlight that these files allegedly show that Andrew,
while acting as trade envoy around twenty ten forwarded sensitive
government documents directly to Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1: What kind of documents are we talking about? Were were talking
about travel itineraries, like hey, I'll be in town on Tuesday.
Speaker 2: No, we are talking about briefing reports from his official
visits to Vietnam, Singapore and China. These are high level
diplomatic and commercial reports. They would likely contain commercial secrets,
private assessments of foreign governments, perhaps information on impending regulation changes.
Speaker 1: And he just emailed them to Epstein, just like, Hey, Jeff,
look at this cool state secret I found.
Speaker 2: That is the allegation, and it gets even more specific
and frankly more thrilling in a terrifying way. The documents
reportedly reference investment opportunities in gold and uranium in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: Whoa whoa uranium? Yes, uranium, Okay, hold on uranium? Isn't
just a commodity like coffee beans or pork bellies. That's strategic,
that's national security level stuff, that's energy, that's weapons.
Speaker 2: It certainly can be. And this is where the quid
pro quo analysis comes into play. Why would the UK
Trade envoy send this incredibly sensitive information to a disgraced
financier Remember, by twenty ten, Epstein was already a convicted
sex offender. He had already served time in Florida.
Speaker 1: Right, he wasn't some respectable Wall Street banker anymore. He
was a pariah, or at least he should have been.
Speaker 2: The theory, and again, this is what the police are
investigating based on the Watch Mudge reporting, is that Andrew
was providing Epstein with inside information. Epstein, as a ruthless financier,
could use that information to front run markets.
Speaker 1: How did that work?
Speaker 2: Well, if he knows where the UK is looking for
uranium before the open market does, he can buy mineral rights,
he can shortstocks or leverage other players. He monetizes the
information that Andrew was supposed to be safeguarding.
Speaker 1: So Andrew goes on a taxpayer funded trip to China
or Afghanistan. He learns about a massive deal and instead
of keeping that for British companies, which is literally his job,
he slips a note to Epstein under the table.
Speaker 2: Exactly. It's the privatization of state intelligence.
Speaker 1: And what did Andrew get in return? Because people don't
usually give away uranium secrets are free.
Speaker 2: Well, that is the million dollar question for investigators. We
know Epstein bankrolled a lifestyle that Andrew really struggled to
afford on his official income alone. We've all seen the
reports of the private the lavish vacations, the loans that
never seem to have clear repayment terms. The police will
be looking to draw direct line information goes out, money
or favors come in.
Speaker 1: If they can prove that that's corruption, pure and simple.
Speaker 2: It completely reframes the narrative. For years, the story was
Andrew is a sleazy guy who wouldn't drop a bad
friend because he was blindly loyal. Now the story is
Andrew may have sold out his country's interest to a
predator in exchange for cash.
Speaker 1: It shifts the victim pool too. Obviously, the primary victims
of Epstein are the young women and girls who were abused.
That never changes, but this charge suggests there is a
secondary victim here, the British public.
Speaker 2: It's a betrayal of trust on a massive scale, and
it explains why the police absolutely had to act. You
can't ignore evidence of a public official trading state secrets,
even if he is the King's brother. In fact, you
have to act because he is the King's brother, just
to prove the system isn't completely rigged, you know.
Speaker 1: Thinking about this timeline, the long fall of Prince Andrew,
it's like watching a slow motion car crash that's been
going on for fifteen years.
Speaker 2: It is a cumulative collapse. The Epstein link isn't a
new revelation, It's the through line of his entire post
navy life. It just keeps resurfacing, like a booy held underwater.
Speaker 1: I still remember that BBC Newsnight interview in twenty nineteen,
the Emily maitliss One. I remember watching it live in
my living room and just my jaw was practically on
the floor.
Speaker 2: It was a masterclass in how not to handle a crisis.
It is literally taught in pr schools now as the
ultimate failure.
Speaker 1: The quotes from that are legendary for all the wrong reasons.
I was at Pete's Express in Woking. I don't sweat
because of an adrenaline overdose in the Falklands. These lines
became instant Internet memes.
Speaker 2: They really did.
Speaker 1: But looking back now, the most damaging part wasn't the
weird medical excuse about sweating. It was the total lack
of empathy.
Speaker 2: And his explanation for his continued friendship do you remember
his logic for staying at Epstein's New York mansion after
Epstein was a convicted sex offender.
Speaker 1: Yes, he said he went there in person to break
off the friendship.
Speaker 2: Which is absurd on its face. You don't fly across
the Atlantic Ocean and stand someone's house for four days
just to say we're done. No, you send an email,
you make a phone call.
Speaker 1: And his quote to justify it, he said it was
a convenient place to stay.
Speaker 2: That's the one he admitted to staying in the mansion
of a convicted sex offender because it was convenient for him.
That level of entitlement, that total lack of judgment, It
foreshadowed everything we are seeing now with this arrest. He
prioritized his own comfort over basic morality.
Speaker 1: It's that inability to see how things look to the
rest of the world. He thought he could just sit
down and explain it away to the public. Oh, I
was too honorable. I couldn't just ghost him.
Speaker 2: Too honorable, that was the phrase he used. He tried
to frame his vice as a virtue, and that arrogance
is what led to the institutional distancing we've seen from
the monarchy over the last few years.
Speaker 1: They saw the writing on the wall.
Speaker 2: They saw it long before the police arrived at Sandringham.
Speaker 1: It's been a really stematics stripping away of his identity.
It's like they've been erasing him from the family picture. Slowly.
Speaker 2: Look at the timeline for a second. January twenty twenty two,
facing the civil suit from Virginia Jeufrey, he loses his
military titles and his patronages. He stops using his Royal
Highness in any official capacity. Then in twenty twenty five
he is formally stripped of styles, titles and honors. He
officially becomes Just Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.
Speaker 1: That must sting for a man who was born a prince,
who was second in line to the throne when he
was born, to end up is just Andrew.
Speaker 2: It is a total identity collapse, and the arrest is
really the final nail in that coffin the institution of
the monarchy has been cutting him loose, piece by piece
to ensure that when this moment came, when the police
car pulled up, he was standing alone.
Speaker 1: He wasn't wrapped in the flag anymore.
Speaker 2: He was just a man.
Speaker 1: That brings us to the King, King Charles, the third,
this has to be his absolute nightmare scenario his first
years on the throne. He's trying to modernize the institution,
he's trying to keep the Commonwealth together, and his brother
is being rated by the police for corruption involving uranium.
Speaker 2: It is a nightmare. But look at a statement. It
was very carefully calibrated. Every single word was chosen by
top tier lawyers and pr strategists.
Speaker 1: They said, the King expressed deep concern.
Speaker 2: Deep concern. Yes, that acknowledges the family bond. He's not
pretending they aren't related. But look at the rest of it.
He emphasized a full, fair and proper process. He said
the authorities have our full and wholehearted support and cooperation.
Speaker 1: He's not defending him. He's not coming out and saying
my brother is innocent of these charges.
Speaker 2: Not at all. He is doing the exact opposite. He
is signaling to the public and the police, we are
not getting in the way. Do your job.
Speaker 1: It's what you called containment mode in your notes.
Speaker 2: Exactly. The monarchy survives by adapting. If they were seen
to be protecting Andrew, obstructing justice, or using their immense
influence to make this go away, quietly. It could trigger
a constitutional crisis.
Speaker 1: It really could.
Speaker 2: It could end the monarchy in the modern era. The
public would simply not stand for it.
Speaker 1: There's that saying you mentioned, the one about trust.
Speaker 2: Trust comes in on foot and leaves on horseback.
Speaker 1: That is such a vivid image for what's happening here.
It takes forever to build trust, step by step, year
by year, and then it just gallops away in a second.
Speaker 2: The royal family knows their trust levels are fragile right now,
between the Harry and Megan saga, the delicate transition from
Elizabeth to Charles. They cannot afford a corruption scandal of
this magnitude. So Charles is effectively saying, he is my brother,
and I am concerned as a brother, but the law
is the law.
Speaker 1: He's sacrificing the brother to save the crown.
Speaker 2: In cold, hard terms, Yes, he is cutting off the
gangrenous limb to save the body. It's ruthless, but frankly
it's the only move he has left.
Speaker 1: But this isn't just a British problem anymore. The threats
of our show title are going global today. We mentioned
the DOJ files, but there was another name that popped
up in those files that surprised a lot of people.
No Norwegian connection.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is the mirror to the Andrew situation. It
shows just how far Epstein's web stretched across global royalty.
The files implicated Crown Princess met Merit of Norway.
Speaker 1: Now she's the future Queen of Norway. This isn't a
minor figure or a distant cousin.
Speaker 2: She is directly in line and the emails revealed a
close personal friendship with Epstein that continued well after his
two thousand and eight condiction.
Speaker 1: This is the pattern. Everyone always claims, oh I barely
knew him, or I met him once at a charity gala,
but the digital footprint always tells a different story.
Speaker 2: Always. In twenty nineteen, the Norwegian Palace downplayed it heavily,
saying contact was minimal. But the twenty twenty six files
show she borrowed his Florida property in twenty thirteen they
were emailing back and forth. It was significant contact.
Speaker 1: And she actually had to apologize.
Speaker 2: She did. She issued a formal statement admitting poor judgment
and apologizing for not being truthful about the extent of
the contact. But here is the key connection back to Andrew.
On the day Andrew was arrested, yesyesterday, the Norwegian Palace
made a very quiet but incredibly loud announcement.
Speaker 1: They took his metal back.
Speaker 2: They confirmed that Andrew returned the Order of Saint Olov,
which he actually received way back in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: That's huge symbolism. It's like being formally kicked out of
the global VIP club. It is.
Speaker 2: Nations give these orders as signs of deep respect and
diplomatic friendship. It's the highest honor Norway can give a foreigner.
When a foreign nation says we don't want you wearing
our star anymore, it is a diplomatic death sentence. Yeah,
it shows how toxic the association with Epstein and now
this specific corruption charge has become globally. Norway doesn't want
to be anywhere near him.
Speaker 1: It's amazing how Epstein is still toxic from the grave.
He's like this radioactive isotope that just contaminates everyone he
ever touched.
Speaker 2: That is an incredibly apt metaphor, and for Andrew, the
contamination is now total. He has lost his domestic standing,
his military standing, and now his international standing.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the reaction from the people who actually
matter most. In the Epstein's store, the victims, we heard
a statement from Virginia Jeffray's siblings.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was incredibly powerful to read. They said, our
broken hearts have been lifted. But the line that really
struck me was he was never a prince.
Speaker 1: He was never a prince. That gives me chills just
hearing it.
Speaker 2: It strips him of his identity in the eyes of
the victims. It says that nobility isn't about a title
you're born with. It's about your conduct. It's about how
you treat people who have less power than you, exactly,
and in their eyes, his conduct was never noble. It's
a moral verdict that hits so much harder than any
legal one ever could.
Speaker 1: And then you have the political reaction. The sources noted
Prime Minister Keir Starmer's response. He didn't mince words either.
Speaker 2: He couldn't. He leaned right into the foundational principle nobody
is above the law. Now it's a safe political line,
but in this specific context it's a warning. It tells
the police and the prosecutors don't be afraid to pursue this.
It gives them the political cover they need to go
after a Royal.
Speaker 1: Now, I know we have listeners from all over the
place spectrum and we always want to just report what
our sources say without taking sides. So the anti monarchy
group Republic they are having a field day with this
according to the reporting.
Speaker 2: Naturally, they claim they submitted a report that helped lead
to this specific arrest. For them, this is proof that
the hereditary principle is fundamentally flawed, that it puts power
in the hands of people who are totally unaccountable. They
are framing this as a massive victory for accountability, and honestly,
looking at the framing from the sources, it's hard to
argue against that narrative right now. If the system works,
this is what it looks like.
Speaker 1: But we have to be the cool heads in the
room here. We have to look at the actual legal reality.
You mentioned earlier that misconduct in public office is notoriously
hard to prove in court. Why is that.
Speaker 2: Because the bar for criminality is so high. You have
to prove that the breach of duty was wilful and
serious beyond a reasonable doubt. Andrew's lawyers and he will
have the absolute best legal team money can buy. They
will argue that sharing those documents was part of his job.
Speaker 1: Wait, how so, how do you argue that sending classified
uranium info to a convicted sex offender is part of
the job description.
Speaker 2: They might argue it was aggressive networking, that he was
trying to build rapport with a major global financier to
eventually bring massive investment into the UK. They will stand
up in court and say, look, maybe it was clumsy
and maybe it was heavily against protocol, but it wasn't criminal.
He was trying to help the UK economy. He was
just doing it in an unorthodox way.
Speaker 1: So the defense strategy is basically incompetence not malice.
Speaker 2: Effectively, yes, I'm a fool, not a correct defense. It's
a risky strategy, but it might be enough to create
reasonable doubt regarding the willful abuse thread. They just need
to convince one or two jurors that he genuinely thought
he was helping Britain.
Speaker 1: And what about the harm aspect? Do the prosecutors have
to prove the UK actually lost money on these deals?
Speaker 2: Not necessarily, but it helps the prosecution immensely if they
can show tangible damage. If the information about uranium or
gold was used by Epstein to undercut a British bid. Well,
that's a smoking gun. But if Epstein just had the
info and did nothing with it, it becomes murkier, becomes
a debate of potential harm versus actual harm.
Speaker 1: So where are we right now? The clock is literally.
Speaker 2: Ticking literally in the UK. When you are arrested, the
PAC clock starts ticking. That's the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.
Speaker 1: What does that process even look like for a royal?
Is he sitting sipping tea in a VIP lounge somewhere?
Speaker 2: I highly doubt it. Procedurally it looks exactly the same
as it does for you or me. He would have
been taken to a police station. He would have been
booked in by a custody sergeant at.
Speaker 1: A desk, fingerprints, mugshot.
Speaker 2: Fingerprints, DNA swab photos, the whole works. He would have
his rights read to him. Formally, he is entitled to
free legal advice, though I suspect he brought his own
high powered team.
Speaker 1: With him, and then he just sits in a cell He.
Speaker 2: Sits in a holding cellar and interview room and the
police initially have twenty four hours to either charge him
or release him.
Speaker 1: Only twenty four hours That seems incredibly short for a
case with international documents and decades of evidence.
Speaker 2: Initially, yes, but they can apply to a senior officer
to extend that to thirty six hours, and then for
very serious crimes like this, they can apply to a
court to a magistrate to hold him for up to
ninety six hours.
Speaker 1: Wow, so four days right.
Speaker 2: Given the sheer complexity of international documents and translating decades
old evidence, they might push for that full time to
get all their ducks in a row before making a move.
Speaker 1: So we basically have three scenarios here. Let's gain them
out for the listeners. Scenario one, charges are filed, the.
Speaker 2: Trial of the century, a senior member of the royal
family in the dock, facing a jury of his peers,
potentially facing actual prison time. It would dominate the entire decade.
It would be bigger than the OJ trial. It would
tear the country apart in debate.
Speaker 1: Scenario two, release without charge.
Speaker 2: He goes home, but the investigation continues. This is known
as release under investigation. It leaves him in total legal limbo.
The cloud hangs over him, maybe for months or even years.
The police basically say we aren't done, but we can't
legally hold you anymore, and.
Speaker 1: Scenario three release with no further action. They just say, sorry,
we made a mistake, nothing to see here, You're free
to go permanently.
Speaker 2: That would be catastrophic for public trust after a raid
like that, after the global headlines. If they let him
go with a nevermind, the public will scream cover up.
It would look exactly like the establishment protecting its own
at the very last second. It would confirm everyone's worst
cynicisms about how the world really works.
Speaker 1: It feels like a lose lose for the institution of
the monarchy, but maybe a win for justice if they
follow the evidence wherever it leads.
Speaker 2: It is the ultimate stress test for the British Constitution.
The question is can a royal suspect be processed consistently,
rigorously and impartially. The final outcome will be a verdict
on the system itself, not just the man.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating to think about the bigger picture here. We
started this deep dive with a headline about a prince
and a birthday arrest, but we've ended up talking about
the nature of power, the fragility of public trust, and
the global web of corruption that can ensnare even the
highest born people, and that.
Speaker 2: Is exactly why this story matters to everyone. It's not
just royal gossip, it's not just schadenfreud. It's about whether
the rules we all live by actually apply to the
people who make the rules or the people related to them.
Speaker 1: From a palace to a police station, from his royal
highness to a man in his sixties from Norfolk. It
has been a long, strange journey for Andrew.
Speaker 2: Mount bat Windsor, and one that is far from over.
Speaker 1: Exactly. We're just the very beginning of the legal phase
of this saga.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and as we wrap up, I think we need
to leave you the listeners, with the core tension of
this entire event, right.
Speaker 1: Because depending on what happens in the next twenty four
to ninety six hours, we're going to learn a lot
about the world we actually live in.
Speaker 2: So here's a provocative thought for you to chew on,
something to ponder that wasn't explicitly in the reporting. If
Andrew is released without charges after this ma massive, high
profile raid, how will you interpret it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Will you see it as proof that the justice
system works because it requires such a high standard of
evidence that even a prince can walk free if the
case isn't absolutely perfect, that innocent until proven guilty is
real for everyone, or will you.
Speaker 2: See it as proof that when push comes to shove,
power still protects its own. Does the high bar of
evidence only seem to apply when the suspect has a
title and wealth.
Speaker 1: It's the ultimate road shock test for our justice system.
We really want to know what you think. Is this
the beginning of true accountability or just the latest chapter
in a long cover up.
Speaker 2: Leave a comment below let us know your stand.
Speaker 1: This has been thrilling Threads. We'll be watching the news
right along with you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, Stay curious, and stay critical.
Speaker 1: Bye for now,