Freelance photographer Terry Harris was on the scene when six unmarked Thames Valley Police cars arrived at Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s home on the Sandringham estate on Thursday morning.
He had been at the Norfolk royal residence for 16 days covering the unfolding Andrew story and sent out the pictures via agency Bav Media to the world’s media.
The Sun reported in a story timestamped 9.36am that police cars had been spotted arriving at Sandringham.
The BBC says it was then first to reveal the news that Andrew had been arrested at 9.54am via a report from special correspondent Lucy Manning.
Thames Valley Police issued a statement at 10.03am stating that it had opened an investigation into the offence of misconduct in public office into an unnamed man.
It said: “As part of the investigation, we have today (19/2), at approximately 8am, arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk.
“The man remains in police custody at this time.
“We will not be naming the arrested man, as per national guidance. Please also remember that this case is now active so care should be taken with any publication to avoid being in contempt of court.”
Since 2013 the College of Policing has said forcesshould not name arrested people until they are chargedunless there are exceptional circumstances.
In 2018,the BBC was forced to pay massive damages to singer Cliff Richard over its reporting of a police raid on his house in 2014.
Source: Press Gazette
