EX-PRINCE ANDREW'S BIG LEGAL MOVE IS ARGUING THE COPS FILLED OUT THE FORMS WRONG

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has a new legal theory, and it is not that he's innocent. It's that the police did the paperwork wrong. The former Prince Andrew has been granted permission to bring a judicial review against Thames Valley Police over search warrants a judge at the Central Criminal Court signed on 18 February. Officers used them on Marsh Farm at Sandringham and on Royal Lodge in Windsor, the house he had already moved out of, and went through it for six days anyway. He was arrested the next day, 19 February, on his 66th birthday, held about 11 hours, then released under investigation. He has not been charged. He has not been cleared. He denies wrongdoing. The underlying inquiry is misconduct in public office, built on allegations he passed confidential trade material to Jeffrey Epstein while serving as the UK's trade envoy. None of that gets settled this week. Thursday is a private hearing in front of Mr Justice Hilliard, and the opening item is Thames Valley Police asking the court to restrict access to the case documents because the criminal investigation is still live. So the hearing about a search of royal property is closed to the public, at the request of the police, in a case the ex-royal filed to get that search thrown out. Everyone in the room wants the curtains shut.

Why you should give a shit: Quashing the warrants wouldn't make him innocent, it would just make whatever the police carried out of Windsor harder to use, which is why a boring argument about paperwork is the only part of this he can actually win.