ANDREW'S ARREST

For some days now,  the media has been awash with the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and to gleeful accompaniment ad nauseam that 'no one is above the law' and nonsense like that. It's been outrageous journalism for the most part with no sense of proportion or restraint.

From our point of view,  we are very far from convinced that  arrest was either  justified or appropriate at this stage and we are firmly of the view that Thames Valley Police were simply grandstanding to be first off the block for a Royal Arrest - the first since Charles I we are gleefully told! We are told also that the arrest was in relation to scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel allegations called  Misconduct in Public Office and relating to Mr Mountbatten-Windsor's time as UK Trade Envoy many years ago.  (Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was appointed UK Trade Envoy by Tony Blair when Prime Minister in 2001 but that's another story).

We have been told further that Mr Mountbatten-Windsor's various properties were  searched and,  indeed,  continue to be searched as we write. We are unsure what the Police expect to find in those properties from all those years ago but there you are.  Certainly,  they have not explained anything and the arrestee was released without charge after only 11 hours in custody. That,  in itself,  is unusual in that if the arrest was a really genuine arrest,  rather than for show purposes, one would have expected the detention to have been for a much longer duration. In normal criminal investigations,  we would expect the Police to search first and arrest later if considered appropriate.

That Mr Mountbatten-Windsor is a very unsavoury character - and keeps equally unsavoury company - there is no doubt.  That,  however,  does not in our view justify the circumstances of his arrest.  It has been reported, rightly or wrongly,  that eight separate Police Forces are interested in Mr Mountbatten-Windsor.  If that is so,  we hope they proceed with much more propriety than Thames Valley Police.

Sadly,  we suspect that none of this has registered remotely with Mr Mountbatten-Windsor.  He is way beyond any form of contrition or correction or understanding of his predicament.