Police put together to quiz Peter Mandelson over misconduct in public workplace allegations after ex-Labour peer’s house is raided

Scotland Yard swooped on Peter Mandelson‘s two homes yesterday.

Police probing allegations of misconduct in public office raided his £12million London house and rented farmhouse in Wiltshire.

As the Epstein scandal continued to engulf the Government, detectives with body-worn cameras began sifting through the belongings of the former ambassador to the US.

The ex-Labour grandee was not arrested but he may face questions from Metropolitan Police detectives in the coming weeks.

Just before 3.30pm, police vehicles swarmed the Grade I-listed Gothic-style enclave near Regent’s Park where Mandelson bought his four-bedroom villa in 2011 on advice from Jeffrey Epstein.

The peer let them in and arranged for other officers to gain entry to his £1million rented country house in Wiltshire, where he recently posed for Press photographs by his Aga cooker.

Detectives left his Regent’s Park home last night with a number of boxes after a search lasting more than four and a half hours.

At around 8.15pm, officers were seen carrying out large blue plastic boxes filled with files, before going back in to retrieve further items and driving off.

The developments piled further pressure on Sir Keir Starmer, who is fighting for his political life following the fallout from his decision to give Mandelson the plum Washington job. It came as:

• The PM’s rival, Wes Streeting, said his leadership hopes would not die when his own messages with Mandelson emerge.

• Angela Rayner has told friends she warned Sir Keir not to appoint Mandelson as US ambassador because of his links to Epstein, it was reported last night.

• The number of Labour MPs who are revolting against Sir Keir rose to eight.

• Panic gripped Whitehall as officials warned there were more than 100,000 Mandelson documents to disclose.

• The former Prince Andrew’s ‘goodbye’ visit to Epstein was exposed as a nine-day party.

• More bombshell emails showed Andrew used a State visit to the United Arab Emirates to lobby on Epstein’s behalf.

• Dozens of MPs – including 22 from Labour – backed a call for a full public inquiry.

• Rattled Starmer allies claimed that if Ms Rayner seized the Labour leadership it ‘would trigger an election’.

• Former prime minister Gordon Brown said he greatly regretted appointing Mandelson as a minister and condemned his behaviour as ‘a betrayal of everything we stand for as a country’.

Scotland Yard has moved swiftly this week, mounting a full criminal investigation days after damning revelations about Mandelson’s dealings with convicted child sex predator Epstein came out.

Its probe was launched after emails suggested that when Mandelson, 72, was Mr Brown’s de facto deputy PM, he repeatedly leaked confidential government plans to the US financier.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hayley Sewart said: ‘Officers from the Met’s Central Specialist Crime team are carrying out search warrants at two addresses, one in the Wiltshire area, and another in the Camden area. 

‘The searches are related to an ongoing investigation into misconduct in public office offences involving a 72-year-old man. He has not been arrested and enquiries are ongoing.’

Those convicted of misconduct in public office face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Two plain-clothes police officers knocked on Mandelson’s Regent’s Park home and showed their ID, before three more joined them shortly after. 

They were seen fetching folded carboard boxes and bags from their cars to collect evidence. 

At least five black unmarked police cars pulled up at his rented home in a hamlet near Marlborough in Wiltshire.

Police spoke to Mandelson inside his Camden home, but it was not a formal interview under caution. 

It is understood that officers will take time to consider both the mass of files released by the US Department of Justice and any evidence they find in his homes or on his own computers.

If they have questions for him, it is likely he will be interviewed by arrangement, but possibly not for some weeks.

It is understood that the detectives were searching for relevant documents and electronic devices like smartphones, computers and USB sticks in particular.

Mandelson was sacked as Britain’s top diplomat last September after the Americans released files showing he regarded Epstein as his ‘best pal’ and had given him advice on how to fight the police investigation into him. 

This week there were staggering revelations that he was giving Epstein Whitehall documents.

Emails from 2009 suggest Mandelson passed on a Downing Street assessment of potential policy measures including an ‘asset sales plan’, and he also appeared to discuss a tax on bankers’ bonuses and confirm an imminent bailout package for the euro the day before it was announced in 2010.

After these emails came to light – along with photos of Mandelson in his underpants – he quit the Labour Party and stepped down as a Lord, hours before he was pushed out.

He has previously expressed his regret at having met Epstein. He did not publicly comment yesterday, but the BBC reported that he maintains he did not act criminally and that his actions were not for personal gain.

Epstein, who courted the world’s elite, was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for masterminding a global child sex abuse network. 

His madam, the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, is in jail for helping him recruit schoolgirl victims to molest.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the 65-year-old former Duke of York – a friend to them both who denies claims that Virginia Roberts was forced to have sex with him when she was 17, has been stripped of his royal titles and has been sent into exile at the King’s private Sandringham Estate in Norfolk.

Mandelson vowed not to ‘hide under a rock’ before latest blow 

By Sophie Carlin 

Just days before the latest trove of Epstein files were released, Peter Mandelson had insisted he would not ‘hide under a rock’ over revelations surrounding his relationship with the paedophile financier.

The Labour grandee had conducted a magazine interview five days before three million pages of documents were released by the US Department of Justice on January 30.

In it, he recalled the moment when he was sacked as US ambassador and described it as being ‘like a 5.30am drive-by shooting’.

‘I was at the edge of something. Suddenly, I was put at the centre of it – as a result of historical emails of which I have no memory and no record,’ he told The Times on January 25 from his Wiltshire home. 

‘It felt like being killed without actually dying.’

Then further shocking details emerged about his dealings with Epstein, with whom he remained close even after he had been jailed for child sex offences. 

By February 1, Mandelson had resigned from the Labour Party after more than four decades to prevent ‘further embarrassment’.

His interview, which includes a bizarre photoshoot inside his home, was published online the next day and met with ridicule on social media.

Mandelson complained that Epstein, once his friend, was like ‘muck that you can’t get off your shoe… like dog muck, the smell never goes away’.

He claimed he had ‘no idea’ why he was snapped in his pants in Epstein’s £8million Paris ‘House of Sin’ flat as he described the paedophile as a ‘master manipulator’.

‘Hiding under a rock would be a disproportionate response to a handful of misguided historical emails, which I deeply regret sending. 

‘If it hadn’t been for the emails, I’d still be in Washington,’ the peer later told the paper.

‘Emails sent all those years ago didn’t change the relationship I had with this monster. 

‘I feel the same about the recent download of Epstein files, none of which indicate wrongdoing or misdemeanour on my part.

‘I too am amazed by some of the conversations I had and areas of my life where I was seeking advice from Epstein.’