UK Politics

It's long been an open secret that Prince Andrew, now stripped of his royal title, was a member of Jeffrey Epstein’s inner circle. But the Epstein files reveal that another figure should be understood as the paedophile’s unofficial ambassador to the British royal family.

David Stern, a 48-year-old German-born investor who now lives in the United Arab Emirates, is mentioned thousands of times in the Epstein files. Epstein introduced David Stern to Andrew. Stern became a trusted friend to the royal family. So trusted that in 2016 he was made a director of the St George’s House trust.

Nestled in Windsor Castle, St George’s House was founded in 1966 by the late Duke of Edinburgh as a private space “where people of influence from right across society could come together to debate and discuss issues of national and international importance”.

Stern was so trusted that he was placed next to the late Queen Elizabeth at an event at St James’s Palace in 2016.

He reported on the then-royal’s doings to Epstein. He pitched business deals to the financier.

It was only after Epstein’s suspicious death and Andrew’s disastrous BBC Newsnight interview about his relationship with the paedophile in 2019 that Stern resigned as a director of Andrew’s project Pitch@Palace, a role he had been given in 2016. He would remain on the board of St George’s House until 2022, three years after Epstein’s death.