Fake Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor mugshot circulates following arrest

An image supposedly showing Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s police mugshot is being shared online. But it’s not real, and very probably an AI creation.

Accounts on social media have shared what appears to be a police custody photo, in which a man who looks like the former prince, who was stripped of his royal titles last year, holds up a sign against a height measure on the wall behind him.

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested by Thames Valley Police at the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk on 19 February on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was released under investigation later the same day.

The arrest follows Thames Valley Police reportedly saying they were assessing a complaint over alleged sharing of confidential material by Mr Mountbatten-Windsor with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Mr Mountbatten-Windsor has previously denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

Under normal police procedure following an arrest, it’s likely Mr Mountbatten-Windsor would have had a photograph taken after arriving at Aylsham police station, where he was questioned by police.

But there are a number of clues that the picture now circulating online is not genuine.

To begin with, the format of the image does not resemble mugshots typically released by UK police forces, including Thames Valley Police. Thames Valley Police also told us it only releases custody photos of defendants who receive an immediate custodial sentence.

And since we first published this fact check, Thames Valley Police has confirmed to us that the image is fake.

When we performed a reverse image search, we found no legitimate news outlets using it.

In versions of the picture where you can see the whole sign the man pictured is holding, the date of arrest is incorrect. It reads “02-14-2026”, an Americanised version of the wrong date—Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was in fact arrested on 19 February. The abbreviation ‘Police dept.’ also appears to be Americanised.

We’ve not been able to establish for certain how this image was created, but there’s good reason to think that it was made with AI.

In particular, there appear to be errors on the height board behind the man pictured, where the inch markings between the numbered heights are not evenly spaced. Police forces in England do not generally show the height markings in the background of mugshots in any case. This is more associated with mugshots taken in the US.

Before sharing posts like this, it’s a good idea to consider whether it comes from a genuine and verifiable source. Our Full Fact toolkit can help you do this.