Britain’s Prince Andrew says he had “ceased all contact” with a businessman accused of being a Chinese spy when concerns were first raised about him.
The statement comes the same day a former UK minister on Friday called it “extremely embarrassing” that a suspected Chinese agent had become a confidante of the disgraced royal.
Andrew met the individual through “official channels” with “nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed”, a statement from his office said on Friday.
The businessman – known only as H6 – has lost an appeal over a decision to bar him from entering the UK on national security grounds.
He brought a case to the UK’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) after then-home secretary Suella Braverman said he should be excluded from the UK in March 2023.
H6 was described as a “close confidante” of Andrew, also known as the Duke of York.
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.
A statement from Andrew’s office said: “The Duke of York followed advice from His Majesty’s Government and ceased all contact with the individual after concerns were raised.
“The Duke met the individual through official channels with nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed.
“He is unable to comment further on matters relating to national security.”
At a hearing in July, the specialist tribunal heard that the businessman was told by an adviser to Andrew that he could act on the duke’s behalf when dealing with potential investors in China, and that H6 had been invited to Andrew’s birthday party in 2020.
A letter referencing the birthday party from the adviser, Dominic Hampshire, was discovered on H6’s devices when he was stopped at a port in November 2021.
In a ruling on Thursday, Justice Bourne, Judge Stephen Smith and Stewart Eldon dismissed the challenge.
News about H6 dominated UK newspaper front pages on Friday, the latest humiliation for a prince whose reputation is already in tatters over his ties to accused sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Asked whether Andrew’s advisers should have been more alert to the danger, former minister of state for security Tom Tugendhat told the BBC that “it’s not quite as black and white as it may first appear – but it’s certainly extremely embarrassing”.
Andrew withdrew from frontline royal duties in late 2019 after public outrage over a BBC television interview in which he defended his friendship with Epstein.
The former Royal Navy helicopter pilot, 64, in February 2022 settled a US civil case brought by Virginia Giuffre, who claimed he sexually assaulted her when she was 17.
Andrew’s mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, stripped him of his honorary military titles and patronages soon afterwards, effectively shutting him out of royal life.