An image showing former Prince Andrew and British politician and ex-British ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson sitting in dressing gowns at a table with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has emerged in documents released to the public.
It is the first publicised photo of the three men together, but the time and place of the shooting is not specified.
The photo may have been taken between 1999 and 2000, before Epstein was sentenced to 13 months in prison for sex offences.
ITV News reported that the picture was taken at Martha’s Vineyard in the US. It shows three men sitting around a wooden table with mugs decorated with the US flag in front of them.
The photo’s appearance in the documents does not indicate any wrongdoing. But both Mountbatten-Windsor and Lord Mandelson were arrested separately on suspicion of abuse of public office over their links to a paedophile, both later sacked under investigation. Mountbatten-Windsor has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in connection with the Epstein case.
Lord Mandelson has repeatedly said he does not believe he committed an offence. He has long maintained that he accepted Epstein and his lawyer’s version of events and only learnt the truth after his death in 2019.
Mountbatten-Windsor said he met Epstein in 1999 through Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s British girlfriend whom he had known since her university days.
Their ties to the late financier led to both men losing their positions, with Mountbatten-Windsor stripped of his royal titles and Lord Mandelson sacked as British ambassador to the US.
Mountbatten-Windsor was accused of having sexual relations with Virginia Giuffre when she was a teenager. The civil case brought by Giuffré was settled without an admission of guilt, and he has strongly denied the allegations.
Earlier this year, photographs showing Mountbatten-Windsor likely kneeling over a woman lying on the ground appeared in a new batch of US Justice Department documents.
In two images, he touches the stomach of an unidentified and fully clothed person. In another image, he looks directly into the camera.
Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently and strongly denied any wrongdoing. Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office in mid-February in Norfolk. Police said at the time that they were looking into a complaint about the former prince’s likely sharing of confidential material with Epstein.
Mountbatten-Windsor served as Britain’s trade ambassador from 2001 to 2011.
Lord Mandelson was sacked as ambassador after Epstein’s affairs came to light over supportive emails he sent to Epstein after he was accused of sexual offences in 2008. The Justice Department also released an image of him in his underwear.
The Metropolitan Police last month launched an investigation into allegations that Lord Mandelson passed confidential government information to Epstein while he was a government minister.
Lord Mandelson has not publicly commented on Epstein’s case in recent weeks, but the BBC understands his position is that he did not act in any way criminally and that he had no financial motivation.