PRINCE Andrew has been spotted driving a special Range Rover fitted with blue emergency lights despite being stripped of his police protection.
The Duke of York was suspended from royal duties over his connections to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Despite no longer being a working royal, the 64-year-old prince was seen by the Mail on Sunday using the £100,000 4x4 for horse-riding trips in Windsor and lunch at Harry’s Bar, a prestigious private members’ club in Mayfair.
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He has been photographed driving the vehicle in Windsor and in central London and is often seen followed by his private protection officers in a £60k Land Rover Discovery.
The Range Rover is assigned to Andrew and is fitted with police lights, while the Land Rover is fitted with amber hazard lights as part of a fleet leased by the royal household.
It is illegal for the public to fit blue lights to their car, but all members of the royal family have a special dispensation so that the vehicles can be used for official engagements and police convoys.
However, as Andrew is no longer a working royal, there are few scenarios – other than state funerals or coronations – where he or his private security team would be allowed to use the lights.
It is understood that the blue lights in the Range Rover have never been switched on.
Prince Andrew was stripped of his honours and taxpayer-funded armed police guards at the end of 2022, which previously cost the public up to £3 million a year.
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Andrew was forced to step down from Royal duties in late 2019 after his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview with journalist Emily Maitlis about his relationship with Epstein. The disgraced financier had killed himself in a jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in August that year.
In 2022, Andrew paid a reported £7m settlement to Virginia Giuffre, and later that year he was officially stripped of his royal title and his police protection. He has denied all the allegations against him.
A Home Office spokesman told the Mail on Sunday: “It is our longstanding policy not to provide detailed information on protective security.”
A Buckingham Palace spokesman declined to comment.
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