Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged police to investigate whether Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor used taxpayer-funded RAF flights and bases to meet convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Telegraph reports that Mr Brown has written to six police forces, citing “new and additional information” and calling for civil servants to be questioned over Mountbatten-Windsor’s role as UK trade envoy between 2001 and 2011.
Mr Brown is concerned that chartered RAF flights may have been used for personal engagements potentially involving Epstein, and that confidential information from official trips may have been shared in a “wholly unacceptable” use of public money.
He has asked police to interview officials from the Ministry of Defence, Department for Transport, Foreign Office and Treasury, and to examine whether Epstein was granted access to RAF bases after his 2008 conviction in Florida.
The former prime minister has also called for any MoD records relating to Epstein’s UK landings to be handed to police, and for a full investigation into due diligence checks carried out before flights were cleared.
Mr Brown has argued that Britain’s “unacknowledged role” in the Epstein saga “is by far the biggest scandal of all”.
Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office following the release of emails alleged to show he passed sensitive information to Epstein while working for the Government. He has previously denied allegations of wrongdoing.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said it was “standard practice” for private or commercial aircraft to use RAF airfields, “subject to fees which cover all costs”.
The spokesman added: “Such use is not automatic and will only be approved when there is no adverse impact to military aircraft and where approval would not interfere with the security or smooth running of the airfield.”