On 21 July 2011, the day it was announced that the former prince would step down from the role, Epstein wrote, "I assume he knows that this is Charles' doing".

The email was in response to a message from an associate, who said: "Lots of TV coverage on PA and always big feature on you. Insane."

Sky News believes PA refers to Prince Andrew.

The former prince served as the UK's special representative for international trade and investment between 2001 and 2011. The role gave him access to senior government and business contacts around the world.

He stepped back from the role amid increasing scrutiny and criticism about his continued relationship with the US financier and convicted sex offender.

A photo of the two men walking in New York made headlines in the months ahead of him stepping down.

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The three million files released by the US Department of Justice provide a glimpse into fragments of personal conversations that were occurring when Andrew and Epstein's relationship was making headlines 15 years ago.

The convicted sex offender had been emailing friends about the news Andrew had lost his official trade role all day.

Epstein said, in another email about the news, "I'm sure this is good for him, he will now be free".

He also sent a news article about Andrew stepping down to Ghislaine Maxwell, who asked, "why?" Epstein responded, "I think he wants to make money".

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office on his 66th birthday.

After 11 hours of questioning, he was released under investigation.

Last week in a statement, the King stressed that Buckingham Palace would help the police if it was approached as part of the investigation.

He wrote: "What now follows is the full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities.

"In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation. Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.

"As this process continues, it would not be right for me to comment further on this matter."

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied any wrongdoing.

Deividas Skebas, 26, stabbed Lilia Valutyte in the heart as she played with a hula hoop in Boston, Lincolnshire, on 28 July 2022.

Skebas, a Lithuanian who has schizophrenia and told police he was being controlled by a chip implanted in his brain by the US space agency NASA, denied murder but admitted manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

He was convicted of murder by a jury at Lincoln Crown Court on 5 February.

Lilia's mother, Lina Savickiene, said she found her daughter "covered in blood and with the hoop around her".

She initially thought "something might have happened" with the hula hoop and described shouting for help while attempting to cover her daughter's wounds as she became pale.

An off-duty police officer tried to help save Lilia, but their efforts were unsuccessful.

Skebas was judged mentally unfit to stand trial in 2023, but that assessment changed in spring 2025 and a criminal trial began at Lincoln Crown Court in January this year.

Jurors were told there was no dispute he had killed Lilia but they had to decide what his state of mind was at the time of the attack.

Prosecutors said he had known what he was doing in stabbing Lilia - who would have turned 13 this year - and tried to avoid being caught.

Skebas appeared by video-link from high-security facility Rampton Hospital in Nottinghamshire wearing a navy blue zip-up jumper and stared ahead without reacting as his sentence was read out by Mr Justice Choudhury on Wednesday.

In his sentencing remarks, the judge said Lilia was a "happy, lively girl as carefree as any nine-year-old should be", adding that Skebas committed a "shocking and horrific act of violence" on her.

He added: "She should have been safe. She was playing in a pedestrianised area and just yards away from her mum."

Mr Justice Choudhury said Skebas had been a user of drugs including cannabis and amphetamines, which would "likely worsen" his schizophrenia.

Opening the Crown's case against Skebas last month, Christopher Donnellan KC told jurors: "This deliberate murder was clearly a wicked act. He knew his conduct was wrong. He knew he was killing a child."

Mr Donnellan told the court on Wednesday: "This was a particularly vulnerable victim, a young girl aged nine. The offence took place with a degree of planning or premeditation."

Jurors heard Skebas loitered around the area until it was quiet before he stabbed the girl with a Sabatier paring knife he bought from a Wilko shop two days earlier.

In the days after the attack, Skebas shaved his beard, tucked the knife behind a radiator and tried to leave the UK for Lithuania on a bus.

Lilia's mother said in an impact statement read by her husband, Aurelijus Savickas, on the day Skebas was convicted: "This is not something you recover from.

"Sometimes terrifying thoughts overwhelm the mind and during this trial there have been many, many more.

"Why her? Why us? The questions remain unanswered."

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The court heard Skebas was arrested two days after the attack, but his mental health was "declining" so he was taken to hospital.

He told detectives he had eaten a piece of rice which he believed was a microchip, and that he had "the power to resurrect" Lilia if the police contacted "his controller in NASA".

In CCTV footage shown to jurors, Lilia could be seen playing with a hula hoop while Skebas watched her from the end of the road, occasionally touching his back pocket, where Mr Donnellan said the knife was hidden.

The force of the attack caused Lilia to fall backwards onto the shutters of the shop next to her mother's store.

An off-duty police officer, Detective Constable Andrew Pearson, who was nearby at the time started running after the defendant, but after hearing "noises of distress" he tried to save Lilia's life.

The girl was pronounced dead at just after 7pm, within an hour of the attack.

In mitigation, defence barrister Andrew Campbell-Tiech KC said Skebas remains dangerous "not merely to himself but in the absence of medication... a danger to others".

He added: "This young man has been subject to a serious and dangerous condition for many, many years."

The judge told Skebas that although he has been sentenced to life imprisonment, "alternative arrangements may have to be made" because of his current mental state.

Temperatures at Kew Gardens in London hit 18.6C on Wednesday afternoon, with thermometers in Kent and Suffolk also topping 18C.

High Beach in Essex, Northolt in London, and Neatishead in Norfolk all saw temperatures rise above 17C.

Some areas experienced higher temperatures than in Barcelona, Spain, and Malta.

The sunnier weather comes following a wet start to the year.

However, Sky News meteorologist Dr Christopher England said: "It'll turn cooler from tomorrow, although temperatures will remain above average for most, as a strengthening and increasingly westerly wind brings cloud and rain to most, although the South East looks dry until after dark."

The mild conditions have been caused by a "generally southerly flow" due to low pressure to the west and high pressure to the east, he added.

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The Met Office also said the higher temperatures "do not signal a sustained shift into genuinely settled spring weather".

Overnight frost and fog are still possible while the overall outlook "remains changeable", it added.

Recent figures from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology revealed Northern Ireland and the southwest of England had their wettest January on record.

Thomas Morgan, 29, left little Jensen-Lee Dougal with "catastrophic" brain damage at the family home in Swansea after a row with his ex-girlfriend while the baby's mother was at work.

At Swansea Crown Court on Wednesday, Judge Mary Stacey said Morgan had shaken Jensen-Lee in a violent attack that left him with extensive injuries, then lied about what happened.

Jailing him for at least 19 years, she said: "The violent shaking with Jensen-Lee's head moving back and forward quickly accelerating and decelerating may have been very brief but it was hard enough to cause his extensive internal head injuries that caused his death."

The court previously heard the baby died in hospital after suffering severe brain damage, numerous fractures and extensive retinal bleeding to both of his eyes.

Morgan had been in a relationship with Jensen-Lee's mother, Jordan Dougal, and was treated as the baby's stepfather at the time of the murder.

Caroline Rees KC, prosecuting, said Morgan "seriously abused the trust placed in him" when he carried out the "extremely violent attack" on Jensen-Lee on 30 March 2024, the day before he died.

Morgan had a heated dispute with his former partner, Georgia Griffiths, earlier that day and was left alone with the infant while the baby's mother went to work.

Ms Rees told the jury Morgan was "full of rage" following the row with Ms Griffiths over text message.

She told the court: "It is clear that this abusive exchange had flipped some kind of switch in Thomas Morgan.

"By the time he was alone with Jenson-Lee, he was angry and aggressive and in no state of mind to be caring for a young baby on his own."

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While at work, Ms Dougal got a call from Morgan telling her the baby was choking and had stopped breathing.

The five-month-old was rushed to hospital but found to have a "devastating" brain injury and was taken off life support the following day.

Morgan denied inflicting serious injuries on Jensen-Lee and said he tried to save the baby after he fell ill in his care, believing he had choked on his own sick.

But he was found guilty of murder and causing grievous bodily harm with intent after a trial at Swansea Crown Court.

Mrs Justice Stacey sentenced Morgan, of Gorseinon, Swansea, to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of 19 years.

In a statement after the sentencing, Jensen-Lee's mother Jordan said: "Since Jensen-Lee's death, my life has been permanently changed. I live with overwhelming grief, trauma and emotional pain.

"I never had the chance to hear Jensen-Lee say he loved me. I will never hear him call me 'mammy'. I will never see him take his first steps, speak his first words, start school, or grow into the person he was meant to be.

"Due to what Thomas Morgan did, I have also received a life sentence, but mine is one of grief."

Through the mist, dog walkers trace the same routes they have for years, as cars crawl past. Just 1,800 live here, and strangers are noticed.

It was here on 16 February 2024 that Brian Low set out on a walk with his dog along a remote track beside a low stone wall.

Minutes later, at around 4.50pm, he was lying on the ground having been shot in the chest and neck.

The track is a narrow, straight corridor lined with tall trees.

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From behind the wall, anyone approaching can be seen long before they come into view. There are no overlooking houses and no passing traffic.

Walking the scene with me, former police officer Martin Gallagher describes it as "a perfect ambush location".

From here, he explains, you could wait unseen. In Perthshire, the crack of a shotgun would not cause major alarm because shooting is part of rural life.

The shooting was calculated, but in those first critical hours, that reality was missed.

The mistake that cost six days

When police arrived the next morning following a 999 call, Brian Low's death was treated as a medical emergency. They thought he had fallen and hurt himself.

Despite visible blood, despite the rural isolation, despite gunshot wounds and despite the absence of any obvious explanation for how he had come to be lying there.

The body was covered and then removed.

No cordon sealed off the ground, no forensic tent appeared and there was no sweep for footprints or tyre marks.

In a village unfamiliar with murder, the possibility of foul play was missed.

The truth emerged later in the mortuary. As the body bag was opened, shotgun pellets fell out.

The post-mortem revealed at least 30 wounds to Brian Low's face - a close-range shotgun blast.

By then, six days had passed.

Six days of walkers crossing the track, six days of shifting mud, six days of bicycle tracks or footprints and animals trampling through.

"Anything that might have spoken clearly of the killer's movements had been lost.

"I can't remember a murder scene being lost for six days like this," Martin Gallagher says.

"The public noticed something was wrong. Police didn't. That's fundamental."

Police held an excruciating news conference with journalists where they tried their best not to look embarrassed while insisting the initial officers believed Brian had injured himself.

The name everyone whispered

As detectives began knocking on doors, asking about bikes seen nearby and anyone behaving suspiciously, something else was happening quietly in Aberfeldy.

In a community that felt uneasy that a killer hadn't been caught, a name was already being spoken of.

When I visited the village in the days after the shooting, almost everyone I spoke to believed they knew who could be responsible.

The same name that kept surfacing was David Campbell.

Some residents even pointed us towards his home. When I knocked on his door, his wife answered from a window: "How do you think I feel?"

Then it was shut in my face.

In small communities like this, speaking out against Campbell was not something done lightly.

To understand why suspicion gravitated towards him, you have to leave the village and drive along the edge of the River Tay, passing JK Rowling's country mansion before arriving at the Edradynate Estate.

Spread wide across beautiful land, the estate has thousands of acres that were owned for generations by a wealthy city businessman.

For years, both Brian Low and David Campbell worked there as groundsman and chief gamekeeper, respectively.

Somewhere along those years, their relationship deteriorated.

Campbell was convinced Low had historically tried to frame him for wildlife crimes on the estate. Nothing was ever proved.

The saga hardened into resentment. Campbell's murder trial was told that he loathed Low.

Decades passed. The anger did not.

By 2024, Campbell was 75 years old. As one former officer put it, he was moving towards "the winter of his life".

And despite the pair having not spoken in years, it appears the grievance had hardened.

Ultimately, Campbell thought he was settling a score for what had happened at Edradynate.

A threat that lingered

Campbell was arrested on 24 May 2024 - more than three months after the shooting.

At the time officers raided his home, he was in the toilet with no clothes on.

He later claimed that being handcuffed to a female officer at his home affected his mood during a subsequent police interview.

Campbell's home CCTV system was also found to have been shut down at 10.09am on the morning of the murder.

During his trial, he described himself as a "dinosaur" with technology, adding: "I certainly didn't mean to switch it off".

For some, the shooting did not come as a shock.

Retired Tayside policeman Alan Stewart remembers an encounter with Campbell more than 30 years ago.

Back in 1995, during a confrontation, Campbell told him: "It's great to see what vermin you see when you haven't got a gun."

At the time, Stewart interpreted it as a veiled threat. More bluster and aggression.

But he says when he heard that a man connected to the Edradynate Estate had been shot dead, his mind went immediately to Campbell.

"I saw it building up," he tells Sky News. "I never thought it would come to actually shooting somebody."

Asked how he would describe Campbell now, Stewart did not hesitate.

"Evil."

And looking back, he says, he saw those traits decades earlier.

The threat, once hypothetical, had become reality.

Settling scores

Back at the scene, Martin Gallagher believes this was no spontaneous act.

The location was chosen, the timing calculated, and routine exploited.

From behind that wall, the killer would have had a clear view down the path, a perfect opportunity to wait until Brian Low was exactly where he wanted him.

The isolation ensured no interruption.

"It's not just a murder," Mr Gallagher says. "It's an execution."

A jury at the High Court in Glasgow agreed, finding David Campbell guilty of murder on Wednesday.

Aberfeldy appears unchanged since Brian Low's killing, but something fundamental has shifted.

Because in a village untouched by murder, the violence did not come from an unknown outsider passing through. It came from resentment carried quietly across decades.

The uncomfortable truth for the villagers here is that danger was never far away - it was living among them for decades.

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A Police Scotland spokesperson told Sky News: "We have reflected and learned from the initial stages of the investigation.

"All relevant policies and procedures were reviewed and immediate organisational changes, relating to attendance at scenes of crime and mortuary procedures, were implemented. This learning forms part of ongoing work to develop detective training."