Mandelson accuses police of arresting him over ‘baseless’ claims he planned to flee abroad

Peter Mandelson condemned the police for his arrest on Monday and claimed he was only taken into custody because detectives had wrongly believed he was about to flee the country.

In a remarkable rebuke to the Metropolitan police, lawyers for the former peer challenged the force to provide the evidence to justify their actions, insisting it was prompted by a “baseless” suggestion that he was planning to move abroad.

His lawyers said Scotland Yard had agreed to interview him under caution next month rather than arrest him over claims that he had passed sensitive government information to convicted child sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

But the Met was informed on Monday that Mandelson was preparing to leave the UK for the British Virgin Islands and took him into custody at a London police station before releasing him on bail in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Mandelson is understood to have told friends around 4am, just hours after his release, that the claims were “complete fiction” and questioned “who or what is behind this?” His lawyers said his “overriding priority” was cooperating with the police.

The extraordinary fightback comes after months of difficult headlines for Mandelson which led to his sacking as the UK’s ambassador to Washington last September over his links with Epstein, as well as his departure from the Labour party and the House of Lords.

Meanwhile, Downing Street is bracing itself for the release of a “due diligence” report from the Cabinet Office as early as next week which sources said warned Keir Starmer of the serious “reputational risk” of going ahead with the appointment.

Officials said the document could prove “very difficult” for the prime minister and warned that his response at the time – asking former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, a friend of Mandelson – to ask him about its contents could be seen as “completely inadequate”.

The Guardian understands that the Met received “intelligence” from a source that Mandelson may be planning a trip overseas.

The information included the suggestion that the British Virgin Islands could be the destination for the Labour grandee, though it does have an extradition agreement with the UK.

Detectives assessed the source of the intelligence and viewed it as sufficiently credible that police decided to take no chances and act by making the arrest.

When he was released after his arrest police put restrictions on his travel overseas as part of his bail conditions. It was unclear whether this involved surrendering his passport.

A statement from his lawyers Mishcon de Reya said: “Peter Mandelson was arrested yesterday despite an agreement with the police that he would attend an interview next month on a voluntary basis.

“The arrest was prompted by a baseless suggestion that he was planning to leave the country and take up permanent residence abroad. There is absolutely no truth whatsoever in any such suggestion.

“We have asked the MPS for the evidence relied upon to justify the arrest. Peter Mandelson’s overriding priority is to cooperate with the police investigation, as he has done throughout this process, and to clear his name.”

Mandelson is understood to have sent a message to friends in the early hours of Tuesday morning, just hours after he was released from police custody and was pictured returning to his north London home.

“Despite previous agreement between police and legal team over voluntary interview in early March, police arrested me because they claimed … that I was about to flee to the British Virgin Islands and take up permanent residence abroad, leaving Reinaldo, my family, home and Jock [his dog] behind me,” he wrote.

“I need hardly say complete fiction. The police were told only today that they had to improvise an arrest. The question is, who or what is behind this?”

However, reports that the Lord Speaker, Michael Forsyth, was involved in passing on a tip to Scotland Yard were fiercely denied by parliamentary authorities.

A spokesperson for the Lord Speaker said: “Any suggestion at all that the Lord Speaker received information about Lord Mandelson’s movements or communicated any such information to the Metropolitan police service, is entirely false and without foundation.”

Mandelson’s furious response to his arrest has brought renewed focus on the prime minister’s decision to appoint him to the Washington role, despite being aware that his friendship with Epstein had continued post-conviction.

A government source said: “It was a mistake to appoint Mandelson, as the PM has said. He lied during the recruitment process. What we know now we didn’t when he was sacked, let alone when he was appointed.”

The Cabinet Office document is thought likely to be among the most damaging of those included in the first tranche of papers relating to the appointment. The government is restricted from releasing further information while the police inquiry is ongoing.

However on Tuesday, the government bowed to pressure from MPs to sanction the release of documents relating to the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor as a British trade envoy in 2001.

Government sources from the time suggested that the request for the former prince to inherit the role from the Duke of Kent came from the Palace directly and was approved by ministers as a formality, as it was unlikely that No 10 would turn down an explicit call from the queen.

In extraordinary scenes in parliament, MPs lined up to criticise Mountbatten-Windsor’s conduct, with trade minister Chris Bryant describing him as a “rude, arrogant and entitled man”.

The releases are expected to provide an unprecedented insight into the handling of the two figures now under investigation over their relationships with Jeffrey Epstein.

However, officials believe it could be weeks or even months before any documents about Andrew are released, in part because of the risk of compromising the police inquiry, but also because of logistical complexities.

A number of the relevant files are believed to exist only in paper form, with officials saying that, as yet, they are only beginning to get a sense of what might need to be released.

The process is being led by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), given the former prince’s envoy role was with UK Trade and Investment, a now defunct government body co-run by the business department and the Foreign Office.

Under government protocols, the complex process of deciding which documents can be released without prejudicing the police inquiry is handled by the Cabinet Office, meaning DBT officials must go through them.

Another complication is that a key factor in whether Andrew is prosecuted for alleged misconduct in public office is expected to be whether his unpaid trade envoy role counted as public office, an area where the documents due to be released could be relevant.

“We have no qualms about releasing any of this, but we also don’t want to compromise the police investigation, and it’s not clear yet what is or isn’t relevant,” a government official said. “So we just don’t know how long it will take. We don’t want to look like we’re obfuscating, as we have no qualms about releasing any of this.”

On the Mandelson files, a first batch is being prioritised for imminent release, which has no relevance to the police inquiry, and which also do not have any potential consequences for national security or international relations, and so do not need to be checked by parliament’s intelligence and security committee.

The timeline for other documents is, in contrast, described by officials as requiring “a number of weeks”, even with the Cabinet Office recruiting internal volunteers to help with the process.