Met Police botches Mandelson-Epstein investigation

Only, the story gets even more bloody ridiculous than that. The Met documents passed to Mandelson’s lawyers actually implicated the speaker for the Lords, Michael Forsyth, who had nothing to do with the whole sorry affair.

Met police blunder

Yesterday, 25 February, the Canary reported that Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle had admitted he was the one who tipped off police to the likelihood that disgraced former peer Peter Mandelson was planning to flee the country and fly to the British Virgin Islands. The tip-off led to Mandelson’s arrest and a renewed police raid on his home.

Mandelson is under investigation after the latest Epstein file release showed him sending confidential government information to serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein. The ‘insider trading’ information would have enabled Epstein and his associates to make an illegal fortune. Former prince Andrew is also under investigation for similar communications.

New information has now revealed that the senior Met officials met with Hoyle on the afternoon of 25 February. They offered an apology to the speaker for revealing that he was the source of the flight-risk tip-off. Internally, the police are treating the incident as a serious breach of protocol.

A Met spokesperson said:

The Met has apologised to the Speaker of the House of Commons this afternoon for inadvertently revealing information during an investigation into allegations of misconduct in public office.

However, the BBC reported that officers twice informed Mandelson’s lawyers, Mishcon de Reya, that Forsyth was the source of the tip-off. This is apparently because the Met doesn’t know its ass from its elbow, and confused the speakers for the Commons with the Lords.

‘To prevent any inaccurate speculation’

When the media immediately announced Forsyth as the informant, the Lords speaker said the reporting was “entirely false and without foundation”. Instead, Hoyle publicly stated that he was the previously-anonymous source.

On 25 February, Hoyle told the Commons that:

To prevent any inaccurate speculation, I’d like to confirm that upon receipt of information, I felt it was relevant I pass this on to the Metropolitan police in good faith, as is my duty and responsibility.

The Commons speaker also revealed that the information on Mandelson’s flight-risk was given to him by an an individual in a position of authority in the British Virgin Islands.

The Met police then conducted their own investigation of the veracity of the information. Whilst Mandelson was released on Tuesday morning, the day after his arrest, he reportedly surrendered his passport as a condition of his bail. The ex-peer denies all wrongdoing.