The Old Bailey judge who signed off the police raids on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s homes had previously approved a raid on a journalist’s home and seizure of their work materials — warrants that were also later quashed by the High Court.
Mark Lucraft, the Recorder of London, signed the documents allowing Thames Valley police to search Andrew’s homes as part of its investigation into his links with the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Court documents showed that officers feared Andrew would refuse entry to his home on the Sandringham estate, which is owned by the King, and claimed there was a risk that documents could be lost or destroyed if they notified him of the raid. Detectives also searched his former home at Windsor when he was arrested on his 66th birthday in February.
This month the warrants used for the raids were quashed at the High Court in London. Mr Justice Hilliard found a “significant error” in the force’s application for the warrants and in the granting of them by the Old Bailey judge.
Thames Valley police, which conceded that the warrants were granted under the wrong statutory provision, have since begun a court challenge to keep the seized material under a different legal mechanism.
Now it has emerged that Lucraft had granted another police force permission to raid the homes of a freelance journalist and two sources alleged to have passed on sensitive information relating to national security — warrants that were also later quashed.
The journalist, referred to in court papers as LXP, had allegedly provided stories to national newspapers, including The Times, on sensitive subjects such as alleged failures to limit Chinese influence.
In July 2022, under the Official Secrets Act, Metropolitan Police officers seized large quantities of electronic devices and documents belonging to the journalist.
The revelation raises serious questions about the scrutiny applied to police warrant applications at the Old Bailey — and lands as one of the country’s most senior criminal judges finds his decisions in the Andrew case under the microscope.
