Two particular issues have arisen yesterday morning as a by-product of the release of the Epstein files by the FBI in America and they both throw the spotlight on British institutions. The first of these issues are an examination of the role of Private Protection Officers whilst Andrew Windsor-Mountbatten was away, paying visits to Epstein on his private island. At least nine police forces in the UK are examining their records to ascertain what these protection officers either knew or recorded of Andrew’s comings and goings. According to a Newsnight interviews, detailed logs should and probably have been kept of Andrews’s peregrinations including the night when he was said to have assaulted Virginia Guiffre but do these records still exist and are they accessible? My guess would be that these records have been lost, mislaid or destroyed and with the passage of time, yet another of the rich and powerful have ‘got away with it’ Of course, I may be mistaken but I would imagine that the police investigations into their own records will reveal practically nothing and the British authorities may have to rely upon the memories of past protection officers which evidence will not stand up in court. Speaking to LBC a former Met protection officer claimed Andrew’s protection team travelled with him to the private island on at least two occasions, including travelling on Epstein’s private jet on one of those occasions. The unnamed former officer said there were real concerns in the late 1990s and early 2000s that the royal protection team became too close to their principals, and staff were terrified of being demoted. Under the rules governing how police forces are held to account, the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) would carry out any further investigation should the initial Met assessment identify concerns. In the next few days, we may know the answer to some of these questions but I would be amazed if usable records still exist. The second issue concerns the young women allegedly trafficked into the UK to be abused by part of the Epstein empire. Even private jets have to go through immigration and customs clearance but this is often cut to a minimum of about 15 minutes and is not the long and drawn out process to which the rest of us mere mortals is subject. Now the interesting question arises as to whether any of the details of the trafficked young women and girls is retained by the British authorities – did they all have passports for example? This is yet another murky area in which the police are examining their own records but given the way in which the state has cut back on its monitoring of passengers entering and leaving the UK in recent years and the special privileges accorded to those who utilise private jets, I have a shrewd suspicion that these visits of young women to the UK was either not recorded or the records have long since vanished. As in the USA, there is a lot more yet to be revealed as journalists trawl through the 3 million documents/files that have been released so far and, quite apart from the Epstein case, there is also some indirect evidence that the former Prince Andrew was abusing his position as a ‘Trade Envoy’ and releasing confidential information to their parties, probably for his own private gain (rather like Mandelson) but this is yet another twist to the emerging story.
In the morning, I had the most entertaining time. Firstly I attended my Tai Chi class as I do each week and afterwards had a coffee with my friendly bank manager with whom I often ‘chew the fat’ as it were. When he left, I joined the couple I had met last week who had been married for well over fifty years and who was always entertaining, and another of the regulars. They were joined by a friend with whom they had been to a talk the night before and then it emerged that at least three of us had all left school at the age of 15-16, largely for economic reasons. It transpired that the elderly friend had actually trained as a nurse in Pendlebury Childrens Hospital. Pendlebury Children’s Hospital was a pioneering paediatric facility in Pendlebury, Salford, England, with roots dating back to 1829. Known as the Manchester Children’s Hospital from 1873, it was a major institution for sick children before eventually merging and relocating to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital on Oxford Road. I enquired of the old lady what dates she had actually been in Manchester but she predated my stay there by about 5-6 years but we knew some of the same institutions. We were discussing the first wages we were paid but back in those days nurses lived in an adjacent home at a reasonable rent. In the 1950s, nurses’ homes (residences for nurses attached to hospitals) generally provided food as part of the board and lodging arrangement. Nurses often ‘lived-in’ with meals provided, and their wages often included a deduction for this accommodation and food. So therefore, the amounts we were paid each week were not really comparable with each other, but I also wondered why the nurses’ homes had to be abolished when they were because there was already a pool of adjacent labour upon which to draw in times of emergency. So after an entertaining morning, I returned home and cooked myself a curry. For the rest of the day, there was an absolute feeding frenzy in the press as we all digested the news that Andrew Windsor-Mountbatten had actually been arrested by Norfolk police earlier in the day. As this is the first time a member of the Royal Family has been arrested since the days of Charles I some 400 years ago, one can imagine the outpourings of the press. There are some suggestions from the liberal British media podcasts that find their way onto YouTube that this might have ramifications as far as the White House itself. It seems the ultimate irony that the ‘wash’ from the Epstein files should engulf first Mandelson and then Andrew but their transgressions are miniscule compared with the revelations of the transgressions of the rich and powerful on the US, not one of whom has actually been investgated let alone charged. The cover-up of incriminating material is off the scale – according to some FBI figures who had to give an estimate of the total volume of Epstein material in the possession of the FBI, it could be that the 3000 files so far released are only about 2% of the actual material collected.