A Transatlantic Justice Exchange: Extraditing Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Ali Fayed for 'ACTUAL' Accountability.

The Bitter Irony of Repeated "Lessons Learned" - Don't Let Death Deny Survivors Once Again, as with Savile, Al-Fayed and yes, Epstein.

The release on January 30 of more than 3 million pages from the Epstein files has intensified scrutiny in that predator’s orbit. Even our Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has now rightly urged ex-Prince, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, to testify before the US Congress - emphasising the need to prioritise victims and that serious questions remain unanswered.

That call is welcome. But accountability cannot be selective. It must extend both ways - and across borders.

The Fayed / Harrods scandal sits squarely alongside the Epstein and Jimmy Savile cases in both scale and pattern: decades of systemic sexual abuse, enabled by wealth, power, and institutional complicity enabling the predators for decades. In each case, monsters were protected not because the warning signs were absent - but because they were completely ignored

I ‘bring-up’ Savile (a term aptly evoking thoughts of vomit) as I’m sure we all remember the solemn assurances that “lessons have been learned”. Yet with the Fayed / Harrods scandal, we find ourselves here again. Only faster, louder, and with overwhelming evidence.

The abuse wasn’t just prolific - it involved international trafficking, failures across institutions and government, and abuse of power on an industrial scale.

Mohamed Fayed not only orchestrated all this, but his influence extended deep into British public life - which ultimately also brought down John Major’s government through the 1990’s “cash for questions” affair.

With now over 400 victims who have come forward (and - sadly - more I know of who are still unable to take that terrifying step) and the Metropolitan Police investigating around 200 reports, the picture is unmistakable:

Extreme wealth and proximity to power shielded a serial predator in plain sight.

During my investigation into Mohamed Fayed, I also became - unintentionally - the first person to hear testimony from survivors of his brothers’ abuse. Salah and Ali Fayed weren’t peripheral figures. They were part of the same appaling system.

Salah is dead. But Ali Fayed - honcho of the luxury shirt maker Turnbull & Asser who are suppliers to the royal family - now residing in Belle Haven, Connecticut - is very much alive. And he must not be allowed to evade justice through death, as his rapist brothers, Savile, and Epstein all did.

So how about this for a pragmatic solution:

The UK extradites Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to the US for questioning on the Epstein files - and in return, the US extradites Ali Fayed to the UK to finally face justice for his vile abuses before he dies.

This simple approach honours the survivors on both side of the Atlantic and prevents further delays. It treats accountability as universal, not selective - and it ensures that death doesn’t once again become the ultimate escape route for the powerful.

But perhaps its pragmatism and simplicity is also the problem - its just not sufficiently buried beneath layers of diplomatic hand-wringing and bureaucratic red tape….