‘Misconduct’, not sex, trips Andrew

Prince Andrew. Picture: Duncan McGlynn/Getty Images Notorious American gangster Al Capone was finally put behind bars – not for murder, kidnapping or even racketeering but for the mundane offence of tax dodging. In the end, though, there was justice as he served eight years behind bars.

It could well be something similar with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the man who now has the dubious honour of being the first member of the royal family to be arrested in more than 450 years. Andrew – that’s how most of us will continue to refer to him – was a close associate of paedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and a frequent visitor to his Caribbean island. Each day, as more and more of the three million documents in the released Epstein files are scrutinised, the situation has become worse for Andrew, his strenuous denial of any wrongdoing notwithstanding.

He can’t deny, for example, the image of him crouched over a young woman. But his arrest yesterday was connected not with any sex-related allegations, but because he is suspected by the UK authorities of having committed “misconduct” in an official position. He probably passed confidential trade information to Epstein. It’s not quite tax evasion, but it will do for now.