Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (left), Jeffrey Epstein and Lord Mandelson pictured at Martha's Vineyard.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (left), Jeffrey Epstein and Lord Mandelson pictured at Martha's Vineyard.
The first photograph of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor with Jeffrey Epstein and Lord Peter Mandelson has emerged.
The trio are pictured sitting around a wooden table in Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the US state of Massachusetts, with Mountbatten-Windsor and Lord Mandelson wearing bathrobes.
The disgraced peer and the former Duke ofYork are facing criminal investigations over their associations with Epstein. Both were arrested last month on suspicion of leaking sensitive information to the paedophile while in public office.
The photo, released by the US Department of Justice and first uncovered by ITV News, is believed to have been taken in the late 1990s or early 2000s.
The location appears to match that of a similar photograph included in Epstein’s 50th birthday book in 2003, which shows Lord Mandelson in a bathrobe talking to the paedophile.
She responded: “Hi Peter. I’m not sure but might it be Jeffrey’s island? I sent JE a note asking.”
To which Mandelson replied: “I think it was Martha’s – the first time I met Jeffrey – staying with Lynn Forester.”
In a separate email exchange between Lord Mandelson and Epstein in 2010, the pair appeared to refer to the Martha’s Vineyard photographs when reminiscing about “the good old days”.
Lord Mandelson said: “The first time we met and I was entranced…”
The disgraced peer and Mountbatten-Windsor faced mounting scrutiny over the depth of their friendships with Epstein after the latest tranche of three million files were released by US authorities in January.
The pair remain the only two people to have been arrested over their connections to the paedophile other than Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s long-term girlfriend who was jailed on sex-trafficking charges in 2020.
Mountbatten-Windsor and Lord Mandelson were detained on suspicion of misconduct in public office during their tenures as UK trade envoy and business secretary respectively. Both deny any wrongdoing.
Scrutiny over Epstein ties
The former Prince Andrew has also faced allegations he lied to the public when he insisted during an interview with BBC’s Newsnight in 2019 that he cut contact with Epstein during a trip to New York in 2010.
Last month, the Telegraph revealed they partied together, threw an exclusive dinner party and invited young women to Epstein’s mansion after 2010.
In the Newsnight interview, Mountbatten-Windsor said he first met the financier “through his girlfriend back in 1999 who… and I’d known her since she was at university in the UK”.
Lord Mandelson was also under significant pressure over his ties to Epstein after the Government published documents earlier this week relating to his appointment as US ambassador in December 2024.
The files showed that British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s senior aides flagged the former Labour peer’s “particularly close relationship” to the paedophile as a “reputational risk”.
They also revealed that senior officials were aware that Lord Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s New York mansion while the financier was in prison.
Florida police started investigating Epstein in 2005 and he was jailed for child sex offences in 2008, spending 13 months in prison before being released on house arrest.
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