Cosy arrangement helped Andrew get massages with taxpayer cash

The British royal family is already a thoroughly unaccountable institution; but Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has given the world an insight into just how dark this elite world can get. And taxpayers will not be happy to hear how easily he got public money for private massages.

Mountbatten-Windsor consorted with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and allegedly raped Virginia Giuffre on numerous occasions when she was a teenager. Over years of abuse under Epstein and Maxwell’s control, Giuffre thought she “might die a sex slave“.

Mountbatten-Windsor paid millions in royal money to settle a case with Giuffre, despite denying wrongdoing. Giuffre sought to use this money to fight against human trafficking. She died by suicide in 2025.

Andrew is a dodgy royal using public cash for private massages

On 23 February, the BBC reported that:

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor charged taxpayers for massages and excessive travel costs while working as the UK’s trade envoy, whistleblowing retired civil servants have claimed.

A former civil servant told the state broadcaster that he had wanted to refuse Mountbatten-Windsor’s request for payment of “massage services” but that senior staff had overruled him:

I’d said we mustn’t pay it, but we ended up paying it anyway

Mountbatten-Windsor had been working as a trade envoy from 2001 to 2011, with “civil servants and taxpayer funding” supporting his trips abroad. He reportedly met Giuffre for the first time in 2001. And he “spent weeks” around this time at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion, getting “daily massages“.

The BBC added:

Another source, a former senior Whitehall official, backs up the claim. This former civil servant, who oversaw finances in this area, had seen similar expenses for Andrew’s trips and says he has “absolutely no doubt” about its authenticity.

He explained:

it was like it wasn’t real money, they weren’t spending any of their own money

There was apparently a severe lack of proper recording or vetting of expense requests, amid an environment of excessive deference and little scrutiny.

The first ex-employee suggested that, in hindsight, greater scrutiny of Mountbatten-Windsor’s behaviour could have reined him in. He asserted:

we should have flagged that something was wrong

While there may have been some light resistance, however, the civil service essentially looked away.

Demand accountability

Despite people seeing Mountbatten-Windsor as “a liability” even at the time, this powerful establishment figure kept his role for years. And now, in the age of artificial intelligence, authorities still refuse requests for information about his behaviour as a trade envoy because it would be “too time-consuming” to go through it.

There are now demands for the royal family to, at the very least, bar Mountbatten-Windsor officially from access to the throne. But in spite of everything in the public domain about him and his recent arrest, such a process could still be an excruciatingly distant possibility.

Judging by how long it has taken for Mountbatten-Windsor to lose his royal titles, and how long it’s still taking to lose his path to the throne, there must be more public pressure on the government and monarchy to act.

People like Mountbatten-Windsor and fellow friend of Epstein Peter Mandelson still have immense privilege, unlike the victims and survivors of the disgusting criminal network Epstein ran.

The instinct in establishment circles to ‘protect their own’ (as we can also see in the latest revelations about Mountbatten-Windsor’s expenses) clearly remains. And justice is not yet a reality for all the women whose lives the abusers destroyed.

The general public must demand a proper response from the UK’s rulers. And if the establishment doesn’t allow meaningful accountability and justice, then we must bring that establishment crashing to the ground.

Featured image via the Canary