Prince Andrew's ‘close confidante’ banned from entering UK after bitter legal battle

The man was previously invited to Andrew’s birthday party and was authorised to act on his behalf to seek investors in China, a secret hearing has been told.

MI5 allegedly discovered the businessman, 50, was a member of the Chinese Communist Party and was working for its United Front Work Department, which gathers intelligence.

His ban from entering the UK has been upheld after an appeal to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).

The man, known only as H6, brought a case to the SIAC after then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman said he should be excluded from the UK in March 2023.

Judges were told that in a briefing for the Home Secretary in July 2023, officials claimed H6 had been in a position to generate relationships between prominent UK figures and senior Chinese officials "that could be leveraged for political interference purposes".

They also said that H6 had downplayed his relationship with the Chinese state, which combined with his relationship with Andrew, represented a threat to national security.

In a ruling on Thursday, Mr Justice Bourne, Judge Stephen Smith and Sir Stewart Eldon dismissed the challenge.

The hearing was told that the contents of the businessman’s phone were downloaded when he was stopped under counterterrorism laws at a UK border in 2021.

The mobile’s contents revealed that Prince Andrew authorised the man to set up an international financial initiative (known as the Eurasia Fund) to engage with potential partners and investors in China.

The phone contained a March 2021 letter from Dominic Hampshire, a senior adviser to Prince Andrew, confirming the businessman could act on behalf of the duke in engagements with potential partners and investors in China.

The letter referred to him having been invited to Prince Andrew's birthday party that month.

The letter reads: "I also hope that it is clear to you where you sit with my principal and indeed his family.

"You should never underestimate the strength of that relationship… outside of his closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on."

It added that after a meeting with Andrew, they had "wisely navigated our way around former private secretaries and we have found a way to carefully remove those people who we don’t completely trust.

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"Under your guidance, we found a way to get the relevant people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor."

Judge Charles Bourne said in the ruling the business had "won a significant degree, one could say an unusual degree, of trust from a senior member of the Royal Family who was prepared to enter into business activities with him."

He added: "That occurred in a context where, as the contemporaneous documents record, the duke was under considerable pressure and could be expected to value the applicant’s loyal support. It is obvious that the pressures on the duke could make him vulnerable to the misuse of that sort of influence."

The three judges said that H6 had enjoyed a private life in the UK, which had been described as the businessman’s "second home," adding: "He has settled status, a home and extensive business interests in the United Kingdom. He was regarded as a close confidant of the duke."