Nicholas Hilliard

Uh, basically, last February, a judge at the Old Bailey granted a Section 8 Police and Criminal Evidence Act warrant to authorize the search of Andrew Mountbatten's home at Wood Farm in Sandringham and Royal Lodge at Windsor.

And the investigation, as the judge, Justice Hilliard, ruled last week, was in respect of alleged offenses of misconduct in public office, and the Thames Valley Police took possession of documentary material and electronic devices.

And what happened is that, uh, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's lawyers applied for an ap-- uh, made an application for judicial review to quash the search warrant on the basis that they had applied under Section 8 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act-

Yeah

Exactly.

What, what's, what's strange, Danny, about that, what you've just said about Thames Valley's statement, which is effectively saying, "We did everything right, it's the judge's fault," is that the judgment or the short reasons given by Mr.

Justice Hilliard in his publicly released statement of reasons last week makes no mention of that.

All...

Andrew has not been charged with any offence and he was released on police bail while this investigation has gone on for many months without any public update.

It was an extraordinary hearing in Court 67 in the Royal Courts of Justice behind me when Mr Justice Hilliard came into the room which was packed with journalists and he explained what had been going on all these weeks without anybody knowing.

He said that Andrew had applied for a judicial review, that's a legal challenge, against the police searches.

Andrew's lawyers argued in this judicial review that the Old Bailey judge who approved the search warrants could not have been sure that the documents seized from Andrew's homes had not contained some that were being held by the former prince in confidence.

Now that ought to have led to a public hearing when we would have heard all about this months ago.

But what happened was the police then admitted that their searches were unlawful and so there wasn't a need for a public hearing.

So on July the 22nd Mr Justice Hilliard formally quashed the search warrants.

This is obviously an embarrassment for the police and a setback.

So if you don't have all your ducks in a row, you're asking for big trouble.

"Justice Nicholas Hilliard said that the Thames Valley Police had made a significant error in applying for the warrants when they searched the properties of the former prince, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor." So what were the errors? What were the mistakes? And look, I understand that the UK has a different legal system than the United States, but how come we don't know what was improper? Are we gonna get that information at some point? "Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on February 19th on suspicion of misconduct in public office, and police searched two of his homes.

His lawyers asked the High Court to invalidate the warrants under which those searches were conducted.

Hilliard said the parties had agreed to invalidate the warrants before the hearing on Thursday.

So if you don't have all your ducks in a row, you're asking for big trouble.

"Justice Nicholas Hilliard said that the Thames Valley Police had made a significant error in applying for the warrants when they searched the properties of the former prince, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor." So what were the errors? What were the mistakes? And look, I understand that the UK has a different legal system than the United States, but how come we don't know what was improper? Are we going to get that information at some point? "Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on February 19th on suspicion of misconduct in public office, and police searched two of his homes.

His lawyers asked the High Court to invalidate the warrants under which those searches were conducted.

Hilliard said the parties had agreed to invalidate the warrants before the hearing on Thursday.

In the full glare of the media, Thames Valley Police searched the King's brother's home at Sandringham and his former address, the Royal Lodge at Windsor.

But at the High Court, it was revealed that in July, Thames Valley Police had accepted that the search warrants they had applied for and that an Old Bailey judge had granted weren't lawful.

The judge in this hearing, Mr.

Justice Hilliard, who wasn't involved in granting the original warrants, said a significant error had been made in the application and granting of the warrants.

They were found to be unlawful because confidential business material may have been gathered during the searches, and that wasn't legally covered by the warrants issued.