The author of a book on Lord Mountbatten has hit out at the secrecy that continues to surround allegations about the murdered royal and child sex abuse at a time when the public is demanding greater openness over such claims.
Andrew Lownie lashed out at both the British and Irish states for refusing to publish files which he claims tell the truth about the exploitation of young, vulnerable boys in Kincora House by the powerful and mighty in society in the 1970s.
He contrasted demands for transparency and the public interest in recent allegations about Prince Andrew and the wall of official silence that surrounds persistent claims about Mountbatten.
He said: “Why do we never hear the same demands for disclosure about the cover-up of Lord Mountbatten’s death and the involvement of the state in suppressing the trafficking and sexual exploitation of young boys from London and Kincora House?”
Earlier this year Mr Lownie published a best-selling book on Lord Mountbatten in which he interviewed several men who claimed to have been trafficked from Belfast – including from Kincora House – as young boys to the royal’s Classiebawn Castle in Co Sligo in August 1977.
So far the Garda has refused to disclose its traffic logs for Northern Ireland-registered cars visiting Classiebawn on the grounds such files remain part of an active murder investigation.
Mr Lownie had wanted access to the files so that he could pursue enquiries into the alleged trafficking of boys to provide sexual services to Mountbatten in the 1970s while on his annual August holiday.
Mr Lownie said that his request refers only to the month of August 1977, a year when it is already publicly acknowledged that there was no murder attempt on Lord Mountbatten, who was killed by an IRA bomb on his boat in August 1979.
The royal was killed along with Paul Maxwell, a 15-year-old helping crew the boat; Nicholas Knatchbull (14), Mountbatten’s grandson, and Dorothy Brabourne, Nicholas’s grandmother.
Prince Andrew has stood down from all public duties after he was criticised for showing little sympathy with the victims of the late Jeffrey Epstein and no remorse for his friendship with the disgraced US financier in a major TV interview.
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