LONDON: Disgraced former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor won a UK legal challenge over searches of his royal homes after police agreed the warrants they obtained were “unlawful”, a High Court judge disclosed on Thursday.

However, the court in London must still decide whether police can continue to hold items seized in the raids, with both the judge and police stressing the investigation remained ongoing. King Charles III’s brother was arrested on his 66th birthday in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office related to his links to late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

He was released the same day, after hours of police questioning, but has remained under investigation. He has denied all wrongdoing in his associations with the American financier. Thames Valley Police (TVP) searched his former home in Windsor, west of London, and Sandringham, eastern England, but it has now emerged Andrew subsequently launched a legal challenge over the legality of the warrants used.

The Daily Telegraph first reported the legal challenge late Sunday. The newspaper noted it was the first time a member of Britain’s royal family has challenged the lawfulness of criminal proceedings against them since the trial of Charles I in 1649.

In the first detailed public disclosures about Andrew’s legal action, judge Nicholas Hilliard on Thursday revealed the police had agreed “the search warrants were unlawful”. But “the fact that the search warrants were quashed does not bring an investigation to an end, or mean that the whole of the investigation was unlawful’’.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2026