The full text of a gushing letter written by Prince Andrew’s adviser to the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo reveals how intimate the relationship between the two had become in the aftermath of the prince’s disastrous 2019 interview with the BBC.
Extracts from the correspondence were quoted in a judgment upholding a decision to exclude Yang from the UK last month, but the two-page letter written by Dominic Hampshire at the end of March 2020 is eye-catching for its tone.
The letter was relied on by the Home Office to demonstrate that Tengbo was able to generate relationships between prominent UK figures and Chinese officials.
Hampshire, a senior adviser to the Duke of York, complained in the letter – subsequently recovered by police from Yang’s laptop – that he had “watched numerous people disappear from his [the Duke’s] network” and that the prince had been surrounded by “red carpet chasers”.
But he went on to praise Yang as being one of “a very small number” of people previously connected to Andrew who had continued “to show total support and loyalty”, amid fierce criticism in the wake of the 2019 interview on the prince’s friendship with the abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
The letter was among dozens of documents released by the immigration court on Friday, and was partly quoted in its judgment last month. In it, Hampshire assured Yang: “You sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.”
The prince’s aide wrote that Yang had been fortunate to attend a celebration of Andrew’s 60th birthday at Windsor the month before, which had been scaled down at the Queen’s request after he struggled to answer questions from the BBC’s Emily Maitlis over his friendship with Epstein.
“I also hope you fully understand what your invitation to his birthday party meant; this was not an engagement or an exclusive dinner. This was strictly his and his family’s personal life that very, very few people have the privilege to ever be part of,” Hampshire wrote.
“Moreover, remember that you were originally invited to their house and therefore on the much smaller original guest list. Despite press reports to the contrary, I know for a fact that there were very few people who were not able to make it.”
In the 2019 interview with the BBC, Andrew had said he cut off contact with Epstein in December 2010, but emails disclosed in a separate legal action have now revealed they were still exchanging messages in late February 2011.
Epstein suggested the Duke might see the banker Jes Staley, and after a back and forth, Andrew wrote: “Keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon.”
Yang, a Chinese-born entrepreneur who had lived in the UK, was excluded from the UK by the then home secretary, Suella Braverman, in March 2023 on the advice of MI5, and the court concluded that she “was entitled to conclude that the applicant represented a risk to the national security of the United Kingdom”.
He maintains the allegations against him are “entirely unfounded”. On Friday, he said he was seeking permission to appeal against the court’s decision in a statement.
A witness statement from Yang provided to the immigration court said that he had first met Hampshire after he sat next to Andrew during a VIP dinner hosted by Buckingham Palace in October 2019, and was advised by the prince to contact him. “The duke wrote Dominic’s number down on a piece of paper,” Yang said.
Hampshire’s letter describes how rapidly their relationship developed after meeting at the Corinthia hotel in London on 23 October. “Immediately, I learned of a whole new level of obsessive confidentiality and a slightly different way of communicating,” reads a sentence partly quoted in the court’s judgment.
“We have dealt with the aftermath of a hugely ill-advised and unsuccessful television interview; we have wisely navigated our way around former private secretaries and we have found a way to carefully remove those people who we don’t completely trust,” Hampshire wrote, using language that has been partly quoted by the court.
Hampshire, a former Scots guard and long-time friend and fixer for the duke, heaped praise on Yang’s punctuality: “You bring a completely new level to timekeeping – I aim to be at every meeting at least 15 minutes before it starts and without exception, you are already there!”
The purpose of the letter, Hampshire wrote, was “a personal note from me to you” and he apologised for its length, which he said was “very British”. It nevertheless emphasised the closeness of their relationship: “After this short amount of time, I feel an unusual bond of friendship, trust, support and loyalty.”
Seven months later, another letter from Hampshire said that Yang was authorised to act on behalf of an investment scheme called the Eurasian fund in China. It said he had the authority to act on behalf of Andrew “in engagements with potential partners and investors in China” but also asked that “this relationship remains confidential”.
