Left: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (September 2022) attending procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall for the Lying-in-State of Elizabeth II by Katie Chan.

Right: Peter Mandelson (February 2025), then-newly appointed as His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador to the United States of America, by Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

Both images were sourced via Creative Commons licences, cropped and remixed together.

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When someone is arrested and under police investigation, we usually don't know their names. Police reveal only their gender, age and the crime for which they are under suspicion, and the media reports it.

The arrests of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson were a striking exception to this practice. When the police said they had "arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk" on February 19, newspapers widely reported that it was the former prince. The image of him in the back of a car after questioning featured on nearly every front page the following day.

Days later, Mandelson was arrested at his London home. Again, police said simply they "arrested a 72-year-old man", and the media confirmed it was the former US ambassador.

The police investigations into both men, on suspicion of misconduct in public office, were prompted by US officials' release of a tranche of emails from the Epstein files. Both men are suspected to have passed sensitive information to the paedophile financier while serving in official positions. Both deny any wrongdoing.

Why was the media allowed to report their........

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