After the farce, how the key document was finally handed over to Duke’s team
THE documents reveal how lawyers eventually managed to serve the papers, after encountering obstacles from Andrew’s team at Royal Lodge.
The documents state that Cesar Sepulveda, a ‘corporate investigator’ with London-based company GCW Intelligence who had been charged with serving the papers, was forced to return to Andrew’s Windsor home after initially being told if he left the papers at the gate they would not be accepted.
They claim Mr Sepulveda first went to Andrew’s home on August 2 at 9.30am, when he met with security staff at the gate, handed over a business card and was asked to wait.
‘After some time’ Mr Sepulveda met with a Metropolitan Police officer who tried to call to see whether he could be allowed up, according to the documents.
After more time passed, Andrew’s head of security arrived and had ‘apparently experienced the same difficulties and could not raise anyone in charge there’.
The document states: ‘The Metropolitan Police Officer/head of security could not locate the defendant’s private secretary, or anyone senior and the dependent was told that the security there had been instructed not to allow anyone attending there for the purpose of serving court papers onto the grounds of the property and at the time they had been told not to accept service of any court process.’
Mr Sepulveda said that the officers said that anything he left with them ‘would not be forwarded to the defendant and it appeared from the attendance that the security staff had already been primed not to allow anyone access onto the property to serve court process and had been instructed not to accept any service’.
The following day at 9.15am, Mr Sepulveda returned to Royal Lodge and a police officer at the entrance called a different supervisor, who said that the documents could be left with the police at the gate. The material would then be ‘forwarded on to the legal team’.
The document states that Mr Sepulveda ‘did enquire whether it was possible to meet personally with the defendant, but he was told the was not possible and although (Mr Sepulveda) did ask the whereabouts of the defendant, the Metropolitan Police officer said that he could not answer any questions’.
The complaint and summons, enclosed in a plastic sleeve and A4 envelope, addressed to Andrew was therefore deemed to be officially served, according to the documents.