ndrew Mountbatten-Windsor ‘secretly’ let multiple women into Buckingham Palace in the late 90s and early 2000s, a former royal protection officer claims.

Paul Page, who worked at the royal residence for six years, told the FBI that security rules were relaxed between 1997 and 2004 to allow the former Duke of York to have multiple women visit the palace without their names being recorded in log books. Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite convicted of child sex trafficking in 2021, was named as one of the alleged visitors.

According to The Times, the ex-royal protection officer contacted US authorities after claiming he reached out to Thames Valley Police in connection to their investigation, with no response.

In a dossier obtained by the publication, Paul told the FBI that he “observed circumstances concerning female visitors to Prince Andrew and the way protection personnel were required to deal with those visitors.”

“I have publicly described circumstances in which I believed ordinary Palace visitor-security procedures were not applied in the same way to certain visitors associated with Prince Andrew,” he alleged. The former protection officer alleged Ghislaine’s “presence and access were sufficiently unusual to become a matter of interest to protection personnel.”

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Paul told The Telegraph he documented “first-hand information” in a statement to the FBI and considered he had “fulfilled my responsibility as a potential witness”.

Investigation details

Andrew was arrested at Wood Farm Cottage in February, on his 66th birthday, over suspicion of misconduct in public office, stemming around his time as special trade envoy for the United Kingdom. The disgraced royal was held in custody for 11 hours.

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 In May, it was reported the former Duke of York is being investigated by Thames Valley Police over potential sex crimes as detectives hoped to speak to a woman who claims she was taken to Andrew’s Windsor home “for sexual purposes”, according to Sky News.

Andrew has faced renewed public scrutiny in recent months over his links to convicted paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. The former Duke of York was stripped of his titles and evicted from Royal Lodge. He has been living in exile on the Sandringham Estate since February.