Wearing crisp white bathrobes with their hair still damp, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson sit on either side of their perverted ringmaster.
Fully dressed in a polo shirt and chinos, in what could easily be seen as a power play, Jeffrey Epstein is positioned between them with his arm casually draped over the back of his chair, clearly holding court.
The extraordinary image plucked from the three million-strong Epstein Files released by the US Department of Justice is the first that shows all three disgraced men together.
Thought to have been taken at a summer house in Martha’s Vineyard, the scene appears at first glance to depict a typical New England coastal getaway in the early noughties.
Friends lounging on wooden outdoor furniture with a barbecue in the background and coffee mugs emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes on the table.
However, it is far from a standard summer backyard photograph. Instead, it captures the beginnings of Andrew and Mandelson’s seedy association with the disgraced financier – connections that would later contribute to their dramatic downfalls.
Relaxed and barefoot in their gowns, and still showing that dewy after-spa glow, the Labour peer and the then-prince appear to have just emerged from a massage or sauna session.
It is a stark contrast to their ashen-faced appearances in recent weeks following their arrests on suspicion of misconduct in public office, linked to leaking sensitive data to the powerful financier. Both men are understood to deny the allegations.
A graphic showing the key elements of interest in the new picture of Epstein with Mandelson and the former Prince Andrew
The trio are believed to have been pictured at the holiday home of the wealthy Lady de Rothschild in the coveted community just south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
No time or date is given for the photograph, which was unearthed by ITV News, and it is unclear who is behind the camera. Like tens of thousands of other pictures and video contained in the Epstein Files, there is no context, but it appears to have been framed, suggesting it was placed on display at one of Epstein’s sprawling properties.
And it appears to have been taken at the same time as another, better known, image of Mandelson, again dressed in a robe, deep in conversation with Epstein.
That image featured in Epstein’s ‘birthday book,’ released by the Democrats in Congress last year, in which the Labour grandee left a nauseating message in his slanted handwriting describing the sex offender as his ‘best pal’.
The photograph is understood to have been taken between 1999 and 2000, before Epstein was jailed for soliciting a minor.
At that time Mandelson and Andrew are understood to have known each other thorough Mandelson’s role as Northern Ireland secretary. Their connection to Epstein stemmed via their mutual friends, Epstein’s on-off girlfriend and now convicted madam Ghislaine Maxwell and City financier Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, as well as his future wife, Lynn Forester.
In 2000, a year before Andrew was made the UK’s trade envoy, he and Mandelson, who was a senior adviser to the then prime minister Tony Blair, were both guests at the de Rothschilds’ wedding.
A woman who previously worked for Epstein said she had massaged both Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson on Martha’s Vineyard on an unknown date but said they were ‘both perfect gentlemen’.
The image released yesterday is very similar to a second photograph of Mandelson and Epstein which was included in the convicted paedophile’s ‘birthday book’, which was released last year
Previously, Mandelson was thought to have met Epstein at de Rothschild’s summer retreat in 2001, but emails suggest their connection dates back to at least 1999.
The files released by the US authorities have revealed the ex-Labour minister had reminisced about their first meeting, describing being ‘entranced’ by the convicted sex offender.
In a 2013 email exchange with Epstein’s staff, Mandelson discussed a photo he had been sent, saying: ‘I think it was Martha’s the first time I met Jeffrey, staying with Lynn Forester.’
He is believed to be referring to Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the businesswoman and now widow of financier Sir Evelyn, who was one of Britain’s richest men before his death in 2022. There is no suggestion of wrong-doing by the de Rothschilds. In an exchange
in 2010, Epstein emailed Mandelson a picture titled ‘the good old days’ to which Mandelson replied: ‘The first time we met and I was entranced.’
The release of the bombshell Epstein files have laid bare the depth of the relationship between Mandelson and Epstein, and Epstein and Andrew. Both men have denied wrong-doing but remain under police investigation for allegedly leaking sensitive information to the paedophile while in public office.
The Epstein files were released in January but the sheer quantity means new evidence is still coming to light.
It is not the first time that Mandelson, 72, and Andrew, 66, have appeared in embarrassing photos linked to Epstein, who died by suicide while awaiting a sex-trafficking trial in 2019.
One image, in the files released under the US Epstein Transparency Act, shows Andrew on all fours, leaning over a woman lying on the ground. Another shows Mandelson, the former business secretary, in his underwear talking to a young woman at the paedophile’s Paris apartment.