Buckingham Palace Received 30,000 Emails Showing Prince Andrew's 'Secret Briefing Leaks' Six Years Ago, Court Docs Reveal

Buckingham Palace was handed a bombshell cache of 30,000 emails six years ago that allegedly showed Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor sharing classified government information with wealthy business contacts while serving as a UK trade envoy — and court documents suggest senior royal officials knew about it long before police did. The archive was delivered to the Lord Chamberlain, the most senior officer in the Royal Household, in May 2020, according to High Court judgments seen by The Independent and the BBC. It is a revelation that raises deeply uncomfortable questions about what the Palace knew, and when.

The archive — spanning correspondence up to June 2013 — was taken from the business account of Jonathan Rowland, former chief executive of Banque Havilland, by a former employee and passed to retail mogul Kevin Stanford. Stanford, the one-time majority owner of fashion chain All Saints, had been embroiled in a separate legal dispute with the Rowland family over losses linked to the failed Kaupthing Bank. A High Court ruling from June 2022 confirmed: Stanford had referenced delivering to Buckingham Palace "material (which includes the archive)" in an email dated 10 July 2020. A separate April 2021 judgment added that Stanford had provided "a copy of the archive to the Lord Chamberlain in May 2020" — at which point the role was held by Lord Peel.

One of the most explosive allegations buried within the email saga concerns a confidential Treasury briefing from 2010. The Telegraph previously reported that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor — then serving as trade envoy, a role he held from 2001 to 2011 — received a sensitive government briefing on the UK-Iceland banking dispute via his deputy private secretary Amanda Thirsk, following an official visit to Reykjavik. He then allegedly forwarded the classified note to Jonathan Rowland, whose family had recently acquired assets from the collapsed Kaupthing Bank, telling him the information might be useful "before you make your move." Rowland later confirmed to the BBC that the emails about Icelandic banking did originate from his account.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor — who stepped back from royal duties following his car-crash BBC Newsnight interview in November 2019 — was arrested on his 66th birthday in February this year on suspicion of misconduct in a public office. Thames Valley Police have since confirmed they are also considering allegations of sexual misconduct as part of the inquiry. The Palace has declined to comment, citing the ongoing police investigation, while a government spokesperson confirmed full cooperation with Thames Valley Police. The force continues to appeal for anyone with relevant information to come forward.