A woman claiming to be Prince Andrew’s fiancée has made it through security.
The 40-year-old Spaniard showed up at the security gate of the Royal Lodge in Windsor last April claiming she was Irene Windsor and was there for dinner with her fiancé, the Duke of York, and was allowed to enter without any identification or checks being carried out.
Security guards even paid for the taxi for the woman, who wandered the grounds for 40 minutes before entering the building, where a suspicious staff member alerted the police.
Philip Grindell, founder of security firm VIP Defuse and former specialist detective with the Metropolitan Police – who was responsible for planning and implementing protective security measures for royal, military, government and other high-profile events – said Andrew’s reputation made staff reluctant to check the woman’s story with him.
Speaking at the International Security Expo in London over the weekend, he said: “Prince Andrew is a pain in the ass and if you’ve ever worked with him he’s a nasty character and the security guards were terrified at the thought of asking him if anyone was coming.
“And since they didn’t want to upset him, no one asked and they assumed he had to have a date and let him in.
“Security was terrified to ask him.”
A former Metropolitan Police Royal Protection Officer, Paul Page, shared a similar account of his work with Andrew.
Speaking separately at the event, he said: “When I heard this it became apparent that the security involved was in the same position with Prince Andrew as I was 20 years ago, in that they were too scared to interview unidentified female visitors, as it would always end with him mistreating us for stopping them.
