Mountbatten-Windsor Warrants Quashed: Police Admit Error, Inquiry Continues
Thames Valley Police has accepted that search warrants used at properties linked to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor were unlawful and should be cancelled, after a High Court hearing in London reported on 8 October 2026. Al Jazeera The force agreed to the order after Mountbatten-Windsor challenged the searches.
High Court Justice Nicholas Hilliard said police made a "significant error" in the applications. He said the court that first approved the warrants used the wrong piece of law, a point the police accept. In other words, the problem was the legal basis for the paperwork, not whether there were grounds to investigate.
Hilliard set clear limits on the decision. Cancelling, or quashing in legal language, the warrants does not end the investigation. It also does not mean the whole investigation was unlawful. The searches fall away. The inquiry goes on.
The warrants were issued before Mountbatten-Windsor's arrest in February, according to earlier reporting. BBC Police then searched his former home in Windsor, west of London, and a property in Sandringham in eastern England. Officers arrested him in February on his 66th birthday on suspicion of misconduct in public office, the offence of abusing official power, linked to Jeffrey Epstein. He was released later that day. He remains under investigation.
What happens to items taken during the searches is unresolved. Police applied to keep the seized property. Mountbatten-Windsor opposed that request. Hilliard said the question will not be settled until next year. Thames Valley Police said legal proceedings are still under way on how the material will be managed and whether it can be lawfully kept for the ongoing investigation. The force said it has returned nothing except material judged unconnected to its inquiry.
Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal titles last year following his connections to Epstein. He has denied wrongdoing. Epstein died in a New York prison in the United States in August 2019.
The broader context here is the gap between an unlawful search and an unlawful case. For a police force to concede this kind of error in a closely watched case is notable, because every step will be tested in court. It settles no question of guilt or innocence. It settles whether the state used the right legal power in the right way.
Looking at what comes next, the fight over the seized material due next year is now the central legal question. Police will have to convince the court the material can be kept and used on a different lawful basis, even though the warrants were cancelled. Lawyers for Mountbatten-Windsor will press for its return or exclusion. How the court answers will shape the evidence available, the timetable, and any future decision on charges.
