Photos of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein show how deeply he ingrained himself into British royal circles
Husna Anjum Senior Live News Reporter and Emma Mackenzie
15:40, 21 Dec 2025
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (left) is pictured with Jeffrey Epstein (middle) and Ghislaine Maxwell (right) shooting on the heathlands of Balmoral(Image: DOJ)
As the Epstein files have begun to emerge, one royal expert has raised questions over the presence of the former Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson. Sarah and her ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, were stripped of their royal titles earlier this year over their relationship with the paedophile financier Epstein.
The Epstein files shed new light on how Andrew welcomed Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, 63, into royal circles. Two photos in particular show convicted sex offender Maxwell in the heart of the House of Windsor’s inner sanctums, The Mirror reports.
In one image, Ghislaine is pictured smiling behind a row of women – whose identities have been redacted – seemingly in the saloon at Sandringham, while Andrew lies across their laps, broadly grinning. In another, she and Epstein, her former partner, are pictured in the countryside near the Balmoral Estate, where they appear to have been going shooting.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was photographed lying across the laps of five people with their faces redacted(Image: PA)
Ahead of publication, the House Committee stressed that being named in these documents does not indicate any wrongdoing and that names appear in different contexts, ranging from general social contact to specific business discussions. Andrew and Sarah being featured in photographs from the newly released files is not an indication of wrongdoing.
It had previously emerged that Maxwell and Epstein had been invited to the vast Highland property, known to have been the pearl of the royal residences to the late Queen Elizabeth II, who saw it as an escape where she was able to spend time with her close family, taking picnics and enjoying the countryside pursuits she so loved.
Privately owned, Balmoral is the site of the Royal Family’s annual summer holiday, and King Charles III’s home there, Birkhall, is also said to be one of his favourite places to stay. Sandringham, another estate privately owned by the monarch, is also where another famous royal tradition takes place: the annual Christmas celebrations.
The images of Maxwell and Epstein invited into the heart of these private royal spaces only add further pressure for King Charles to keep his “distance” from Andrew and his ex-wife, one royal expert has told the Mirror.
“They should have done this years ago, but at least they’ve done it now,” biographer Andrew Lownie told the Mirror, referring to King Charles casting his brother from the fold, and stripping him of his royal titles and styles.
Andrew and Sarah are also poised to move out of Royal Lodge – their long-term home, which they have shared despite their divorce. Andrew is set to move to the Sandringham Estate, and although it has not been made public which property on the 20,000-acre estate in Norfolk he will occupy, it won’t be the main house.
Sarah Ferguson, in the purple coat, pictured in photographs released from the Epstein files(Image: PA)
Sarah won’t be joining him, however, with both her daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, reported to have offered their mother the chance to live in their homes.
Despite the optics of Andrew moving to Sandringham after the emergence of this photo, seemingly taken at the lavish estate, Lownie does not believe it will change the fact that the former prince will be calling Norfolk home once he moves out of Royal Lodge.
“Well, I think everyone’s been prepared that there is more damaging material to come out, so I don’t think it’s changed much,” said the expert, who penned a bombshell biography last summer about Andrew and Sarah called Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York.
“But what will be interesting is if correspondence shows more about Beatrice and Eugenie, because at the moment he and Fergie have been cast aside, but they’ve been taken in, if we discover that they knew much more than they are claiming, then that’s going to make cosying up to them more difficult,” Lownie adds.
The expert continues: ” Clearly [Andrew] had a pretty dissolute life, and was entertaining all sorts of people at Sandringham, and they were very much part of his inner circle. I think it’s possibly from that time when they all went to Sandringham, but it could be from another time. That’s the problem,” with the document dump, he explains, “we get no context to any of this.”
However, it was the new images of Sarah in the files that Lownie believed to be the most “revealing”.
“I think what’s more revealing is the picture of Fergie”, he said. “Why have they taken out that person with her? Who was she? I think her role, her links with Epstein, have never really been fully investigated.
Sarah Ferguson (left) pictured with a woman whose face is redacted, from Epstein files(Image: PA)
“We know that their relationship lasted longer than she claims, and everything has been focussed on Andrew and Jeffrey. I do think, how much did she know?
“Why hasn’t she been asked to give testimony to the lawyers and the FBI? I think what this is going to show is that there is more to the Fergie side of this. The allegation that she was so close [to Epstein] as to take the children to meet him when he came out of prison, I think is pretty revealing.”
Epstein claimed to his legal team in an email in 2011 that emerged this year that Sarah took Beatrice and Eugenie to “celebrate” his release from prison. He had pleaded guilty to child sex offences in 2008.
Epstein also alleged in the email that a protection officer accompanied them. Sources claim that neither Sarah nor her daughters remember this alleged visit.
However, questions are still raised for Lownie about what Sarah might have known about Epstein and his sex trafficking network. “She stayed so often at Epstein’s house,” says the expert.
“She must have been aware of the pictures of naked girls, the whole sexualised atmosphere, I mean, we get a sense of that just from some of the casual pictures on his desk [that] show what sort of lifestyle he led.
“Here was a woman, promoting children’s charities, writing children’s books, dealing with sexual trafficking charities and going and staying at these places. Bringing her children, I mean, she took them off to meet P Diddy.
“There’s a whole series of pictures of her with people. She went to see Peter Nygard in the Bahamas. This is not the role of a responsible mother, and it’s just that she doesn’t really care. She has a pretty loose set of morals.”
Lownie also explains that in his view, Sarah is “cynical” – more than happy to present one face to the public, and another in private, pointing out that she stayed in touch with Epstein longer than she claimed, emailing him effusively after publicly disowning him just weeks before in 2011.
The email she sent, which emerged this year, called Epstein a “supreme friend” and saw her “humbly apologise” for speaking about him negatively and saying she “abhors paedophilia” in an interview with a newspaper.
Sarah is also reported to have had her lavish lifestyle “bankrolled” by Epstein for 15 years, and leaked emails saw her ask for vast sums from the financier to cover “small bills” – she has previously apologised for borrowing $15,000 from him.