United Kingdom, Andrew paid for massages with taxpayers’ money

London (United Kingdom), 23 February (LaPresse) – Former Prince Andrew, at the centre of a legal storm over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, charged taxpayers for massage expenses and travel costs he deemed excessive while working as the UK’s trade envoy. This was reported by the BBC, citing former British civil servants. One former civil servant, who worked in the UK Department of Trade in the early 2000s, was so annoyed by Andrew’s request to cover the cost of “massage services” that he refused to pay, but claims he was forced to do so by his superiors. “I thought it was wrong. I said we shouldn’t pay it, but in the end we paid it anyway,” he told the BBC, referring to a claim submitted after Andrew’s visit to the Middle East. The Department of Commerce did not dispute the claim relating to the period when Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor served as an envoy between 2001 and 2011, but referred to the ongoing police investigation into the former prince. Andrew’s role as a Department envoy was unpaid, but the former prince enjoyed the support of civil servants and taxpayer funding for his trips abroad.