On this particular occasion,
I went into Prince Andrew's bedroom and his apartments,
and on his bed was 72 teddy bears, on his bed.
My Inspector showed me a laminated card,
which was in the side drawer
of one of the bedroom cabinets,
of a picture of these teddy bears all in situ.
And he said, "The reason for that picture
is that the maids have to put them back
exactly like it's in that picture."
He said, "If they don't, he shouts and screams."
[MARYANA] So Paul, can we start with you explaining to me what actually the job of a Royal Protection Officer means.
Basically, we provide 24-hours-a-day,
365-days-a-year armed protection.
I was based at Buckingham Palace from 1998 till 2004,
and my role was to protect the Queen,
Prince Philip and Prince Andrew.
They were the ones that lived at Buckingham Palace
at that time.
[MARYANA] Can you give me a bit of an overview of when you joined Buckingham Palace?
When I joined,
I think Princess Diana had just passed away the year before.
The unit at the time
was full of fairly older police officers
coming to the end of their retirement,
'cause it was sort of that kind of unit back then,
it was a place where you would go to sort of retire
and see the last few years of your life out in the police.
So, from the impression I got when I got there,
Prince Charles was not the most popular of individuals,
or members of the Royal Family,
because of what happened to Princess Diana.
There was a lot of blame attached to him
and the Royal household.
So the general feeling amongst officers
was that it was his fault,
what happened to Princess Diana.
[MARYANA] What were other members of the Royal Family like?
They were alright, to be fair.
Obviously, Prince William, Prince Harry,
when I was there, they were only young,
but they were really nice kids.
Would always talk to the police,
always wave at 'em when they came in and out
in their vehicles.
The others were pretty much just quite straightforward,
stern, didn't really have any conversation with them.
The Queen was very nice.
Met her on a number of occasions in the garden,
and she would stop and talk.
Obviously, you don't talk to her, she talks to you.
But yeah, she would pass the time of day with you
if she was in the garden.
[MARYANA] So you've mentioned that Prince Andrew was one of the people you were hired to protect. So what was your first impression of Prince Andrew?
He was very obnoxious.
An angry individual.
Obviously, we've got a lot of security procedures
at the palace.
Gates have to be locked, gates have to be secured,
guests must be vetted before they're let in.
We never really heard any issues with Prince Charles,
Princess Anne or Prince Edward,
'cause they weren't resident at Buckingham Palace.
So my experience is purely with Prince Andrew,
and the way he used to treat police officers,
members of the royal household,
the waiting staff, the maids, the footmen,
'cause we were there in direct contact with him.
Prince Andrew would fly off the handle
if we've not opened the gate for him in time,
or if we've stopped one of his guests
because we've not got the right ID,
or we haven't been given any information of who they are.
He would be verbally abusive.
Shout, swear.
Yeah, just a really rude individual.
[MARYANA] How would he treat other members of staff?
The same.
A maid's come forward and explained
that once he got her to come up four flights of stairs
to open his curtains when he was sat right next to 'em.
I remember going in.
At the weekend, we used to do alarm checks,
personal tech alarms in all the Royals' bedrooms
and private apartments,
to make sure they're working when they were at Windsor.
And on this particular occasion,
I went into Prince Andrew's bedroom and his apartments,
and on his bed was, I now know, was 72,
I said about 50, but a maid confirmed it was 72,
'cause she had to count 'em,
72 teddy bears on his bed,
and just thinking, "Alright. Okay."
And then my Inspector showed me a laminated card
which was in the side drawer
of one of the bedroom cabinets
of a picture of these teddy bears all in situ.
And he said, "The reason for that picture
is that the maids have to put them back
exactly like it's in that picture."
He said, "If they don't,
he shouts and screams and abuses 'em."
And then a maid came out
and confirmed that she had to do that,
otherwise he would shout and scream.
So, you know, that's not,
not really the actions of a nice person,
you know, to have people
having to do that.
He's a very self-entitled person.
I mean, more so than any member of the Royal Family.
He stuck out like a sore thumb.
No one liked him.
[MARYANA] Talking about Prince Andrew and people visiting him.
Who have you seen visiting Prince Andrew?
Well, the one that I said publicly,
about 14 years ago,
was Ghislaine Maxwell.
She was a very frequent guest of Prince Andrew.
The set-up with her was...
Most guests... As I say, nine to five,
Buckingham Palace is like a working building.
So you'll have guests coming in and out
to see members of the Royal Family.
So the set-up is, at the front gates,
you've got police officers,
and then you've got more police officers inside the building
at the front.
So the private secretaries of different members
of the Royal Family will ring down
to this office called the Privy Purse,
and they will give them all the appointments for the day
for each member of the Royal Family.
So on one particular occasion,
the officer in the Privy Purse phoned down
a list of appointments for this day.
One appointment for Prince Andrew,
we were told a female guest was attending,
I think about one o'clock, lunchtime,
but her name was not to be entered
into the appointments book.
So we asked why,
and we were told her name was Ghislaine Maxwell.
And then, obviously,
we realised she was the daughter of Robert Maxwell.
So we thought, "Yeah, obviously it's not a good look
for her to attend the palace the Queen's in.
If it got out into the public domain,
it could be embarrassing."
About an hour later, we walked through.
We were relieved from post,
walked back to the police lodge,
and we walked into the garden,
the back garden at Buckingham Palace,
where the Queen's private apartments overlook.
And to our right, on the grass by the summer house,
was a picnic being set up by a footman and maids.
On our way back from the police lodge about an hour later,
Prince Andrew's sitting with Ghislaine Maxwell,
having this particular picnic.
And again, we said, "If the Queen looks out of her window
and realises that's Ghislaine Maxwell
sat outside on her grass,
she probably wouldn't be too happy."
And that was the first time that I encountered her.
But after that it was the same routine.
She was just allowed to...
we were told not to stop her
if she was coming into the palace,
she was allowed to just come straight through security,
and she would go straight into the quad
where Prince Andrew's private door is.
She was a regular visitor.
And I said this before,
a colleague of mine noted that she'd come into the palace
and out of the palace four times in one day.
So she had carte blanche to enter and exit.
No one else did.
No one had that sort of facility,
apart from members of the Royal Family.
And to us, as police officers,
seeing this on a daily, weekly basis,
we formed the opinion
that there was some form of relationship going on
between the pair.
[MARYANA] Have you seen any other female guests coming to Prince Andrew's...
Yeah.
I mean, as I mentioned,
nine to five is the office working hours,
when everyone has to... we have to have their names.
That was the only one occasion
where we were not given a name until we asked for it.
And after five o'clock, the palace shuts,
there's no more appointments.
So that's private engagements,
sort of, like, guests of the Queen,
like friends and stuff like that,
who might pop in,
or Prince Philip might have a friend coming in.
Prince Andrew used to have many frequent female visitors
after 5pm, up to 11pm at night.
The usual form was for us not to ask any questions.
We were not given the names
of most of the ladies that were attending.
They would turn up at the front of the palace,
say they're here to see Prince Andrew.
We would ring his footman, his personal footman,
and they would come down,
and we would let the females through,
no checks, no names,
and just let 'em straight through into the palace
to meet the footman,
where they would then be taken up to Prince Andrew.
Obviously, this is a clear breach of security,
'cause we need to know who's in the palace.
And we do get people turn up,
saying they're here to see the Queen,
but they're not, they're just mentally challenged.
So the idea of people turning up,
saying they're here to see Prince Andrew,
and we're just letting 'em in, is ridiculous.
But if we didn't...
I'll give you one occasion when we didn't do that.
A young lady turned up, probably about 22, 23 years old,
said she was here to see Prince Andrew.
He'd just came in about half an hour previous,
so we knew he was in.
But the footman wasn't answering his phone.
There was no way of us contacting anyone up there,
so we just politely said to the lady,
"We're really sorry.
We can't let you in at the moment,
'cause we can't confirm you're expected."
So she said, "Oh, shall I ring him on my mobile?"
So we said, "Yeah, fine."
So she rang Prince Andrew on her mobile,
and we could hear him clearly.
He said, "Put an officer on the phone."
So my colleague took the phone,
and he said, "Listen to me you fat, lardy-assed c**t.
Let my guest in immediately, or I'm gonna come down there."
Everyone heard it.
The lady went red, apologised,
and we just let her in.
So after that,
obviously, those sort of issues we had with him,
we would just let women in.
Didn't ask questions, 'cause we just did not want the grief.
I mean, complaints were made about him.
He was a rude, obnoxious, horrible individual.
But no one was gonna take a complaint
to the Royal household,
cause he's the Queen's favourite.
So we just had to bend the rules for him
and breach security.
[MARYANA] Do you think it was quite obvious he was the Queen’s favourite?
Yeah.
Yeah, he was definitely the Queen's favourite.
And probably the reason why he's in so much trouble now
is because he was the Queen's favourite,
'cause no one reeled him in,
and he was left to get on to do whatever he wanted.
I'll give you another example.
On the Queen's floor, there's cameras everywhere.
And the camera operator noticed an individual
on the Queen's private floor, where her apartments are.
And we couldn't identify who it was.
She wasn't in at the time,
but it's still a potential security alert.
So we, four of us, four officers, including a Sergeant,
went down to that corridor.
We entered from both ends,
so we could obviously meet this person in the middle.
And as we got closer, we realised it was Prince Andrew.
So my Sergeant explained what had happened,
apologised,
said, "Look, we couldn't identify who it was on camera,
so had to come and check it out."
And instead of saying, "Oh, no problem,"
he turned around and said, "Listen, this is my house.
I'll go where I want. Now f**k off."
Again, we're doing our job.
There's no need to talk to police officers like that,
or anyone like that.
I've spoken out
because people should know what Prince Andrew's really like,
and then judge for themselves.
I mean, the stuff that I'm saying
has been corroborated by other officers,
about how he bullies people,
how he shouts and swears.
He's not a nice individual.
That's the bottom line.
[MARYANA] Were you surprised then by the recent case against Prince Andrew?
All I'm saying is, look, there's two sides to the coin.
Prince Andrew, which we now know,
and I think a lot of the people realise,
his mask has slipped now,
he's not the clean-cut individual
some staunch royalists thought he was.
He's obviously gone too far and he's said too many things.
He's defended his relationship with a convicted paedophile.
And that, to me and a lot of police officers,
you know, we just couldn't believe it,
because he's basically kicked dirt
in the face of every survivor of sexual offences
around the world.
[MARYANA] On a day-to-day basis what poses the greatest security threat to the royals?
People that are mentally challenged.
Because you do get a lot of stalkers with the Royal Family.
So Prince Andrew was at Windsor,
in his residence in Windsor.
A female turns up in a black taxi, I think it was.
Says she's there to see Prince Andrew,
she's got an appointment with him.
The officers just let her straight in.
And she was mentally challenged.
She wasn't a guest.
And she was left to wander around his private house,
with him in there somewhere,
before they realised and detained her,
and she was arrested.
So that individual could have had a knife, a gun,
you don't know,
and could have come across Prince Andrew.
These are the kind of people on a day-to-day...
Not so much terrorism,
because we get threat level advice on briefings every week.
We will get a security threat assessment, basically,
from the government,
that will tell us
if there's any threats to the Royals.
[MARYANA] So with the hierarchy of protection, obviously, the Queen is at the top of it.
How many people are protecting her at the same time?
Well, say, for example, at Buckingham Palace,
24 hours a day, you've got three or four shifts,
and each shift will probably have about 30 officers on it.
And then that will stay there all the time,
even when the Queen goes to Windsor,
'cause they'll be the same contingent down at Windsor,
or if she goes up to Balmoral.
As I said, half the officers will go with her
up to Balmoral.
So she will have quite a number of police.
She'll have a corridor officer as well,
that's based outside her bedroom door 24 hours a day,
365 days a year.
So as soon as she opens her door,
there's someone standing there.
So, within seconds, they would be in her room,
if need be.
[MARYANA] From working as a royal protection officer, what incident was the greatest security threat to the royals?
Well, you had Fagan, who, years before I was ever there,
who actually got into the Queen's bedroom,
sat on her bed.
And that instigated a lot of it.
I'm not gonna go through security,
but that instigated a lot of security overhauls
within the palace.
There's a lot more cameras, beams, pressure pads.
Especially now. I haven't been there for a long time,
but I can imagine the upgrade is quite substantial.
But Fagan was the worst, I think, of all time,
apart from when Princess Anne was...
They attempted to kidnap Princess Anne,
and I think her Protection Officer was shot in the Mall.
So yeah, that was the worst one.
But actually getting inside the palace,
it would be very, very difficult.
'Cause as soon as an alarm goes off,
you touch certain areas, alarms will go off,
cameras are trained on that position,
and then officers will turn out,
armed officers from inside the palace
and outside the palace,
plus helicopters, plus dogs.
Within five minutes, the place is surrounded.
So if something ever did occur,
it would be shut down immediately.
[MARYANA] But during your time there, you haven't witnessed anything...
No.
Let me think.
No.
No. No one's got in.
[MARYANA] Moving onto other members of the Royal Family,
there has been quite a lot of news going on about Harry and Meghan
and Harry leaving the Royal Family.
Is that something that you could see coming?
Meghan Markle, I think she was 35 or 30
when she came into the Royal Family.
She'd had a life.
She was an actress, she'd been married before,
so she was pretty much clued up.
And I think what's happened
is she's come into the Royal Family,
and this archaic system has tried to control her
and say, "You will do this, you will do that.
You will not go here, you will not go there."
And she's just said, "No, I'm not gonna live like that."
And I think that's why the issue was,
'cause Meghan would not conform to the rules
of the Royal household,
and she wanted to actually have a life,
then that's where the problem started.
[MARYANA] I wanted to talk a little bit about the whole idea of the Royal Family generally.
As someone who's been around Buckingham Palace and seen the lifestyle of the people there.
I think what's gonna happen is,
when the Queen passes away,
then I think the government will look at slimming down
the Royal Family, because of the cost implications.
Potentially, you'd probably get Charles, Camilla,
William and his wife as the four main Royals,
with their children, obviously,
and I think the rest will,
their security may well be slimmed down.
So there will never be a time when it's abolished.
There'll never be a time when it's abolished.
Slimmed down, yeah.
You know, like I said,
to probably four individuals, plus William's children.
So, I mean, they already did it with Harry.
They cut off his security,
'cause his bureau, I think initially, when he left,
he had Met officers living in Canada with him.
And I think that was stopped.
But there's questions all over the place
about who's paying for what.
But I certainly noticed the security bill
was very, very high,
and they'll be looking to slim that down
once the Queen passes away.