The Duke of York faces the prospect of new revelations emerging about his relationship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein when a legal battle involving a former Barclays Bank boss is heard in the High Court
Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein may once again be thrown into the spotlight in a legal case.
The Duke of York was mentioned in High Court papers in a case involving former Barclays Bank boss Jes Staley who is appealing a ruling which bars him from holding senior UK financial roles over his links to Epstein.
Mr Staley was found by the Financial Conduct Authority to have given a misleading account of the nature of his relationship with Epstein and he denies doing so. His appeal will take place tomorrow in the Upper Tax Tribunal.
The FCA said that features of the relationship between Epstein and Mr Staley showed they were “close”, and that emails sent between the pair were “inconsistent with a business relationship”. These included Epstein making “numerous introductions and recommendations for Mr Staley”, including with a royal family member, believed to be Prince Andrew.
In 2023, Mr Staley was fined £1.8 million and banned from holding senior roles in the financial sector by the FCA after it found he misled the watchdog over his friendship with Epstein.
The appeal is set to include details about Andrew’s relationship with Epstein who died in prison while he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019. Andrew has strenuously denied wrongdoing.
The extent of Andrew’s friendship with Epstein was also laid bare in hundreds of pages of unsealed court documents for proceedings in the US, with Andrew paying millions to settle a civil sexual assault case with Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Epstein whom he claimed never to have met.
Court documents from the FCA in the case involving Mr Staley showed that a “royal family member”, believed to be Andrew, was in email contact with Epstein as late as February 2011. The royal told Epstein to “keep in close touch” in an email, with the claim coming amid all the scrutiny placed on Epstein’s relationship with the Duke of York.
Andrew previously told the BBC that he broke off his friendship with the sex offender in December 2010. In an interview with BBC’s Newsnight, Andrew told Emily Maitlis: “I ceased contact with him (Epstein) after I was aware that he was under investigation and that was later in 2006 and I wasn’t in touch with him again until 2010.” He later said that in December 2010: “I had to show leadership and I had to go and see him and I had to tell him, ‘That’s it’.”
