An Heir Of Entitlement

What the Andrew Mountbatten Windsor story tells us about inequality in modern Britain

“The focus is not on seeking some sort of justice for the victims. The focus is on, ‘will he keep this title or that title? Will he live in this house or that house?’ It’s not on the people who’ve suffered. It’s not ‘what does justice look like in this situation?’”

Symon Hill, once arrested for heckling a proclamation ceremony for King Charles in 2022, quickly becomes animated on the subject of the monarch’s brother, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, the former Prince who has been stripped of his title and evicted from the 30-room Royal Lodge at Windsor because of his links to the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

For Hill, a trainee Baptist minister, these penalties are nothing compared to the suffering experienced by Epstein’s victims - including Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she was coerced into sex with Mountbatten Windsor when she was just 17.

“I cannot imagine what it is like for them to hear and read this news about Andrew, and see that what is happening to him is being presented as some sort of punishment” said Hill, in an interview with the Byline Podcast.

“He will [still] live a lifestyle with a level of privilege and wealth beyond the imaginings of the vast majority of the population.”

As if to underscore the point, it’s been revealed that Mountbatten Windsor’s new residence will be on the monarch’s private country estate at Sandringham in Norfolk. The King is also said to be topping up his brother’s £20,000 a year navy pension with a six figure ‘relocation fee’ and an annual stipend.

Hill said: “This is the consequence of an unequal society - an inequality that monarchy stands for and represents. If you’re that privileged, if you’re part of the Windsor family, then living in a very nice house rather than a palace, is somehow considered an appropriate punishment for being accused - even if you deny being accused - of involvement in sex trafficking.

“You could say Charles was slow to act, and you can’t blame him for wanting to help his brother out. But that’s the whole problem, because in what other walk of life is a major decision about somebody accused of a crime made by the accused person’s brother?

“You certainly shouldn’t get a judge or a politician making a decision about an alleged criminal who is their own brother. If that were to happen, that would be considered an outrageous conflict of interest. It would be considered high level corruption.”

Giuffre, meanwhile, died by suicide in April. Her recently published posthumous autobiography includes allegations that she had three liaisons with the then Duke of York, saying that, “it was as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright.”

Mountbatten Windsor has always vehemently denied Giuffre’s claims, but nevertheless paid her £12million in an out of court settlement in 2022, amid reports that £2million of the sum had been paid by his late mother Queen Elizabeth II - the kind of ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ most of us can only dream of.

It has recently been alleged Mountbatten Windsor asked his Metropolitan Police bodyguard in 2011 to uncover Virginia Giuffre’s confidential social security number and date of birth. The Met has said that it is “actively looking into the claim”, but the police have shown little obvious curiosity about the wider allegations which have been swirling around the ex-Prince for years.

The anti monarchist organisation Republic is crowdfunding to bring a private prosecution against him and Hill - who is a member of the group - contrasts the apparent ‘kid glove’ treatment of Mountbatten Windsor with the police’s zealous treatment of his own case, which led to £2,500 compensation payout for wrongful arrest in March.

He said: “I never got to appear in court because the charges were dropped. But I don’t think that offering not to live in a palace or call myself a prince would have been considered sufficient punishment for any crime I’d been accused of - as appears to be the case for Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.”

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Listen to the full episode below