Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor reportedly used taxpayer money for massages and lavish travel costs while serving as the UK’s trade envoy.
A former civil servant turned whistleblower said his refusal to pay for the costs was ‘overruled’ by senior staff, the BBC reports.
‘I thought it was wrong… I’d said we mustn’t pay it, but we ended up paying it anyway,’ he said, referencing a trip Andrew took to the Middle East.
Andrew has continued to deny any wrongdoing in relation to his role as trade envoy and his association with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The claim comes days after police began a probe into reports that Andrew shared confidential information with Epstein while working as a trade envoy between 2001 and 2011.
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Emails from the Epstein files appear to show the ex-prince shared confidential details of investment opportunities and reports of trade visits.
The former Duke appeared to send the paedophile financier details of his upcoming trips to Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam on October 7, 2010.
After the visits, on November 30, he then appeared to forward official reports of those trips, sent by his then-special assistant Amit Patel, to Epstein.
As a trade envoy, Andrew was meant to be bound by a duty of confidentiality over sensitive, commercial, or political information from these official visits.
But emails appear to show that Andrew sent Epstein investment opportunities in Afghanistan.
The disgraced duke was arrested last week on suspicion of sharing confidential information with Epstein.
Andrew was pictured slouched in the back of a vehicle on Thursday evening as he left Aylsham police station in Norfolk.
Misconduct in public office, sometimes called MiPO, carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
It concerns ‘public officers’ – a wide-ranging label for roles such as elected officials, government staff and prison staff – who ‘wilfully neglect to perform their duty’.
Members of the Royal Family can go to prison if they are found to have committed a crime.
It’s the latest blow to his already collapsed reputation over revelations about his friendship with Epstein, with the latest batch of documents released by the Department for Justice fueling criticism of the ex-prince.
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