Prince Andrew says he has “ceased all contact” with an alleged Chinese spy

Prince Andrew has said he has “ceased all contact” with a businessman accused of being a Chinese spy after receiving advice from the government.

In a statement, his office said Prince Andrew had met the man “through official channels” and that “nothing of a sensitive nature was ever discussed.”

The alleged spy has since been banned from the UK a ruling by the UK’s semi-secret national security court.

The man, known only as H6, was described in court as a “close confidant” of Prince Andrew who had formed an “unusual degree of trust” with the Duke.

In 2023, H6 filed an appeal against its initial ban, but the decision has been upheld by the court.

Judges said the businessman was trying to take advantage of Prince Andrew’s influence.

The duke’s office said it was “unable to comment further on matters relating to national security”.

Her statement did not specify when she stopped contacting the man or the length of their communications.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment, saying they do not act for the prince, who is not a working royal.

China’s embassy in the UK has denied the espionage claim saying “some people in the UK are always eager to fabricate baseless spy stories aimed at China”.

“Its purpose is to defame China and disrupt normal exchanges between Chinese and British staff,” an embassy spokesman said.

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman banned H6 in the UK in March 2023.

He then took his case to the Special Board of Immigration Appeals, a court created to hear appeals against decisions to bar or remove someone from the country on national security or related grounds.

In the published judgmentthe justices upheld Braverman’s decision.

The court was told that H6 was invited to Prince Andrew’s birthday party in 2020 and told he could act on his behalf when dealing with potential investors in China.

It is not clear how H6 got close to the prince, but in November 2021 he was stopped and questioned by police officers at the UK border under powers to investigate suspected “hostile activity” by a foreign state .

During this stop, H6 surrendered several electronic devices, including a cell phone.

What the agents found about them worried the MI5 security service so much that Braverman used his exceptional powers to ban the H6 from the country.

In a letter found on one of his devices, Dominic Hampshire, an adviser to Prince Andrew, told H6: “Outside of (the prince’s) closest internal confidantes, you sit at the top of a tree that many and many people would like to be there.”

Hampshire adds, “Under your guidance, we have found a way to make relevant people invisible in the House of Windsor.”

No further details about who the “relevant persons” were are given in the extract from the letter included in the judgment.

Hampshire also confirmed to H6 that it could act for Prince Andrew in talks “with potential partners and investors in China”.

A document listing “main talking points” for a call with Prince Andrew was also found.

He says: “IMPORTANT: Manage expectations. Really important not to set expectations ‘too high’ – he’s in a desperate situation and will cling to anything.”

The court assessed that this meant that H6 was in a position to “generate relationships between senior Chinese officials and prominent UK figures that could be exploited for the purposes of political interference by the Chinese state”.

The judges said H6 had gained an “unusual degree of trust from a senior member of the royal family who was prepared to enter into business activities with him”.

They added that the relationship had developed at a time when the prince was “under considerable pressure” which “could make him vulnerable to the misuse of this kind of influence”.

The prince has faced increasing scrutiny since late 2019 over his friendship with late American financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which included his infamous Newsnight interview in November of that year.

he retired from royal duties in November 2019 and since then the prince has been dogged by questions about his judgment and finances.

Questions were raised about the prince’s finances after reaching a settlement – believed to be in the millions – in a civil sexual assault case brought against him by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers. The prince has always denied assaulting Ms Giuffre.

Isabel Hilton, editor of China Dialogue, told BBC News that Chinese state agents will typically seek to target “members of the House of Lords or prominent business people, or people who have a voice in the community”.

He added that it was “quite ambitious” to target a royal and “very unwise for a member of the royal family to allow themselves to be targeted”.

Security chiefs feared Beijing was trying to carry out an “elite capture” operation to influence the Duke of York because of the pressure she was under, a tactic aimed at appointing high-ranking profile for Chinese companies, think tanks or universities.

H6 was subsequently informed that UK authorities believed he was associated with the United Front Work Department (UFWD), an arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tasked with carrying out influence operations.

The ruling said MI5 director-general Ken McCallum had expressed concern about the threat posed to the UK by China’s political interference and that bodies such as the UFWD “were mounting patient campaigns, well-financed and deceptive to buy and exercise influence.”

The Home Office said they believed H6 had been involved in covert and deceptive activities on behalf of the CCP and that his relationship with Prince Andrew could be used for political interference.

Suella Braverman has now asked for H6 to lose her anonymity, telling The Daily Telegraph that “revealing the identity of this person will have a deterrent effect”.