The disgraced royal was sheltered by silence. Accountability to victims must mean testimony abroad and scrutiny at home, not palace containment tactics

When Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his titles last October, it was presented as a final act: a disgraced royal cut loose to protect the monarchy. The Epstein files suggest otherwise. Photographs and emails released by US authorities place Mr Mountbatten-Windsor deep inside Epstein’s network of favours. And they reveal an intimacy that goes far beyond poor judgment by the former prince.

This is no longer about salacious gossip or constitutional niceties, but about providing accountability to victims of sexual abuse. Mr Mountbatten-Windsor insists on his innocence yet refuses to cooperate with investigators. The US Congress continues to pursue Epstein’s connections. In Britain, parliament still averts its gaze. This looks untenable.

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Anger at former US ambassador Peter Mandelson’s relations with the child sex offender threatens to topple the prime minister

It was the one scandal that Donald Trump seemed unable to shake. No matter his best efforts to convince his supporter base that there was nothing to see here, the demands for the administration to release every document it had on the child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein only grew.

Yet even after the most shocking revelations in the latest drop about Trump’s inner circle – involving everyone from Elon Musk to the Maga honcho Steve Bannon to the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, not to mention Trump himself – so far, it seems, the administration has escaped largely unscathed. Nobody has resigned, nobody has been fired, and certainly there is no sign that the US president is going anywhere.

Files suggest David Stern was Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘man in the palace’, passing messages to the former prince until 2019

Jeffrey Epstein wanted his 26-year-old Belarusian girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, and her friend, Jen, to have a good time in London – and he knew just who to ask.

“Karyna – my girlfriend, and Jen, the tall girl who you’ve met will be London Tues and Wed,” the 63-year-old disgraced financier apparently wrote in April 2016 to an aide to the then Prince Andrew. “They have never been there before. If you are around, I’d appreciate any help you can give them.”

Emails appear to show Mountbatten-Windsor attempting to introduce Epstein to UAE crown prince via foreign affairs minister

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor vouched for Jeffrey Epstein during a UK state visit to the United Arab Emirates with Queen Elizabeth II in 2010, according to newly released emails.

The email was sent from “The Duke” to Epstein on 24 November of that year, with the subject listed as “Abdullah” – an apparent reference to the UAE foreign affairs minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.