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Thames Valley Police said on Thursday that search warrants used earlier this year to search the homes of former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor were unlawful.
The High Court quashed the warrants on July 22. They had been issued on February 18 for two properties in Norfolk and Berkshire as part of the investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor.
The force said the agreement that led to the warrants being quashed concerned the legal basis for issuing them and did not amount to a judgment on the ongoing investigation.
“We accept the position that the initial court’s decision to issue warrants under the specific piece of legislation used was incorrect and therefore these must be legally quashed,” a Thames Valley Police spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that the investigation into alleged misconduct in public office by a man in his 60s from Norfolk remained active, with officers pursuing reasonable lines of inquiry.
Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested by Thames Valley Police in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office over allegations that he shared confidential material with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He denies wrongdoing.
The warrants were issued before his arrest, and his lawyers challenged their lawfulness. Mountbatten-Windsor later began legal action against the force over the warrants used in the investigation.
Files released in January indicated that in October 2010 Andrew sent Epstein details of planned official trips as a trade envoy to Singapore, Vietnam, Shenzhen in China and Hong Kong. The files suggested that the following month he apparently shared official reports from those trips.
