Palace Sat on Andrew Evidence for Six Years, Accuser Says

When institutions decide to look the other way, the cost falls on everyone except the powerful.

That’s the bitter message embedded in a new bombshell claim from Epstein accuser Jess Michaels, a former dancer who alleges that Buckingham Palace received damaging information about Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor as far back as 2020—and did nothing with it for six years. According to reporting from the BBC, the Lord Chamberlain, the senior officer of the royal household, received approximately 30,000 emails that allegedly contained evidence Andrew shared confidential information with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein while serving as U.K. trade envoy from 2001 to 2011.

The timing matters. Virginia Giuffre, who sued Andrew for sexual abuse and won a settlement outside court in 2022, died by suicide in April 2025—never seeing the palace acknowledge wrongdoing or face meaningful accountability. Michaels, speaking to The Telegraph, didn’t mince words about what that silence means: the palace knew a criminal investigation was possible and chose inaction instead.

Here’s where the institutional calculus becomes impossible to ignore. Andrew was arrested at his Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, this past February on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The Thames Valley Police have since expanded their investigation to include allegations of sexual misconduct, with authorities confirming last month they’re examining reports that a woman was taken to an address in Windsor in 2010 for sexual purposes. That’s real criminal machinery now grinding forward—but only after six years of palace silence and only after an Epstein accuser had to go public to force accountability.

King Charles III issued a measured statement supporting“the full, fair and proper process”of investigation when the arrest became public. It’s the right words. What remains to be seen is whether six years of institutional inertia can be overcome, and whether a victim who never lived to see her name cleared becomes anything more than a historical footnote to a scandal the palace tried to contain.