Andrew’s arrest shows how far justice has strayed from biblical principles

Obviously, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, want to hide. That was why he tried to lay down, like a corpse in an open coffin, in the back of the vehicle driving him from police custody last week. And it’s why Ferguson is reportedly holed up in the United Arab Emirates.

The question arises: What do they think they’re hiding from? Clearly it must be beyond uncomfortable to be a focus of attention in the Epstein files. But who did Mountbatten-Windsor think people would assume was in the back of that car? The Tooth Fairy?

Customarily, the police assist with anonymity when they bring ordinary citizens into custody, covering their heads with blankets. The arrested or accused may also hide their faces with files or hoodies. This is entirely understandable – they may be innocent, or charges may not be brought and no one should be associated with an offence that has nothing to do with them.

But when they’re as high profile as an heir to the throne and his former duchess spouse? Hiding surely only focusses further attention on the nature of the police interest in them.

Right and wrong

And that’s what I would like to concentrate on. It’s the customary media protocol to state that Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied any wrongdoing in his association with the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – and I re-state that here. But it’s entirely legitimate to scrutinise what he was arrested for and, indeed, what he is so anxious to dissociate himself from.

The police let it be known that he was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office and subsequently released pending further investigation. Theoretically, that could relate to two types of allegation arising from the Epstein files – the trafficking of underage girls for sex, or the leaking of price-sensitive, confidential information while serving as a UK trade envoy.

Monstrously, the House of Windsor has replicated his Church’s response to allegations of sexual abuse 

Given the phraseology of the police statement, the widespread assumption is that it is the latter. And, if that is so, I would contend that it’s deeply depressing. Not so much that a senior royal should be investigated for sharing such information, but that it should be the police’s evident priority.

By that, I mean that rumours regarding Epstein’s trafficking of teenager Virginia Roberts, later Giuffre, that have been circulating for a decade and a half. Giuffre alledged Andrew sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was 17. Eventually, the royal family settled the $12 million civil claim while Mountbatten-Windsor asserted no admission of guilt.

Giuffre’s grieving family have said that Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest is a posthumous vindication of her campaign for justice. They’re comforted to know that even senior royalty is not above the law, they added. But I’m afraid that is simply not so. It appears that the royal sex life, and whether Mountbatten-Windsor was aware of the depth of Epstein’s depravity (or shared any of it by association) are of far less interest to our law enforcement than a possible offence against fair money-making and uber-capitalism.

That is a grotesque inversion of the principles of the gospel teaching on which our laws are very substantially founded. Yes, Jesus overturned the moneychangers’ tables in the temple, but only on behalf of the dispossessed and vulnerable. His association was with the poor and unclean – one might say the cruelly abused, such as Giuffre and her contemporaries. Today, by contrast, they wait for justice while the money men are protected.

Church and state

The depth of sadness of that – Giuffre was driven to suicide over those many years without ever seeing her case heard in law – has a truly awful further resonance. We hardly need reminding that Mountbatten-Windsor’s elder brother is the king. As such, Charles III isn’t just head of state, but also Defender of the Faith (however much he might have liked to play with those words in the past).

Rumours regarding the trafficking of Victoria Giuffre for sex have been circulating for a decade and a half

He is Supreme Governor of our national faith, the established Church in law, the Church of England. Monstrously, the House of Windsor has appeared to replicate his Church’s response to allegations of sexual abuse since 2010 – play it long, look the other way, kick into the long grass, rely on deference.

I watched a former Buckingham Palace press secretary claim on air that the King had responded “absolutely decisively” and “very swiftly” to the wretched issue of his younger brother. Not so. Along with his late mother, he had 15 years or more to do so - and didn’t.

In Church, as in state, matters of money and power have always taken precedence over matters of sexual abuse and rape of minors. It’s well past time that changed.