A senior adviser to the Duke of York showed a “lack of common sense” when he agreed to give evidence in an alleged Chinese spy’s legal case without seeking advice from his own lawyer, a tribunal has been told.
Yang Tengbo, who has previously said he had “done nothing wrong or unlawful”, was excluded from the UK on national security grounds by then-home secretary Suella Braverman in March 2023.
Mr Yang unsuccessfully challenged the decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) last year, where judges said in their ruling that the businessman was a “close confidant” of Andrew who had “won a significant degree, one could say an unusual degree, of trust” from the duke.
At a hearing on Friday, the specialist tribunal heard Dominic Hampshire, a senior aide to Andrew, was in contact with the intelligence services about Mr Yang – known as H6 during his legal battle – in 2022, before the decision to exclude him had been made.
The specialist tribunal also heard bids from multiple media organisations for documents that were part of the SIAC challenge, including a witness statement from Mr Hampshire.
Judges were told Mr Hampshire had provided the witness statement with assurances from Mr Yang’s legal team that it would remain confidential.
Adam Wolanski KC, for the media organisations, said Mr Hampshire did not seek his own legal advice about the likelihood of his evidence becoming public, describing this as “bewildering”.
He continued in written submissions: “It is extraordinary that a person in Mr Hampshire’s position, apparently charged with dealing with confidential and sensitive matters on behalf of the Duke of York, did not bother obtaining his own legal advice before agreeing to provide a witness statement to Mr Yang.
“Mr Yang’s lawyers appear to have provided Mr Hampshire with overly optimistic grounds for believing his evidence would not be made public.
“Regardless of this, Mr Hampshire cannot now pray in aid his mystifying, and unexplained, decision to give a witness statement in this obviously highly contentious matter without seeking his own legal advice.
“He should not be permitted to benefit from his, to put it kindly, lack of common sense and his bad decision to proceed without legal advice.”
Mr Wolanski later said Mr Yang relied on Mr Hampshire’s evidence, which “informed the commission’s decision”, and is repeatedly referred to in the judgment.
Mr Yang’s barrister told a hearing of the specialist tribunal that the businessman does not seek any redactions related to Andrew.
In a witness statement for the hearing on Friday, Mr Hampshire said he was not warned of a possibility of his previous evidence being made public.
He said: “If there was any question of this being available in the public domain, I was not warned of it and, if I had been, I would never have agreed to submit a witness statement, much less go into the level of confidential detail which I did in my statement.”
He continued: “I wrote what I did in the statement with such candour – including about my own confidential commercial interests but also about the private interests of third parties – in the expectation it was for the private attention of one of the most senior ministries of state on a grave matter.
“I quite simply would not have volunteered to write about those matters had I known that there was any chance, however small, that it was for use in a forum which was or could become public.”
Jonathan Price, for Mr Hampshire, said his client “has not tried to hide his involvement in the underlying facts of this case” and “is now living with the significant adverse consequences of press intrusion”.
The barrister said Mr Hampshire’s witness statement had been withdrawn before the SIAC challenge began in public and was not referred to in open court.
He also told the specialist tribunal the contents were private and confidential, and never intended to be used in public.
Mr Price continued in written submissions: “It appears from the judgment that neither party nor the commission referred to or relied upon the substance of Mr Hampshire’s evidence in open court, and nor is its substance referred to in the judgment.”
He added: “He was not separately represented, so relied upon assurances, which he accepts were not given as guarantees but which he took seriously, from lawyers acting for Mr Yang that his statement would be treated as confidential and dealt with only in private.”
Mr Price later said criticism of his client had been “unfair”, adding: “One might think it was a reasonable basis on which to proceed.”
Documents previously released in the case show Mr Hampshire had thanked Mr Yang for standing by Andrew following the Newsnight interview over his relationship with late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“We have dealt with the aftermath of a hugely ill-advised and unsuccessful television interview,” Mr Hampshire told Mr Yang in a letter on Buckingham Palace stationery in March 2020.
The letter from Mr Hampshire, which also referenced that Mr Yang had been invited to Andrew’s birthday party in 2020, was discovered on the Chinese national’s devices when he was stopped at a port in November 2021.
The letter also said: “I also hope that it is clear to you where you sit with my principal and indeed his family.
“You should never underestimate the strength of that relationship… Outside of his closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.”
Mr Hampshire said an invitation extended to Mr Yang to the duke’s birthday “was not an engagement or an exclusive dinner”, but was “strictly his and his family’s personal life that very, very few people have the privilege to ever be a part of”.
Mr Justice Bourne, Judge Stephen Smith and Sir Stewart Eldon will give their decision in writing at a later date.
