An image of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein has been found in documents released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ).

It is the first known image of the three men together, but no time or location is given for the photograph.

ITV News said the photo was taken in Martha's Vineyard in the US and is believed to have been taken between 1999 and 2000, before Epstein was sentenced to 13 months in prison and registered as a sex offender.

The image shows the men sitting around a wooden deck table, with mugs decorated with the US flag in front of them. There is no suggestion that appearing in the documents implies any wrongdoing.

Mountbatten-Windsor and Lord Mandelson have separately been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office over their connections to the paedophile and have both since been released under investigation.

Mountbatten-Windsor has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

Lord Mandelson has repeatedly let it be known that he believes he has not acted criminally. He has long argued that he accepted Epstein and his lawyer's version of events and only discovered the truth after his death in 2019.

Mountbatten-Windsor has said he first met Epstein, in 1999 through Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's British girlfriend, who he had known since she was at university.

Their connections to the late financier have seen both men lose positions, with Mountbatten-Windsor stripped of his royal titles and Lord Mandelson sacked as the UK's ambassador to the US.

Mountbatten-Windsor has been accused of having sex with Virginia Giuffre when she was a teenager. A civil case brought by Giuffre was settled with no admission of guilt, and he has strenuously denied the allegations.

The BBC has seen the newly discovered image in the latest tranche of documents, which was part of three million pages, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos posted publicly by the DOJ in January.

Material is still being discovered as journalists and the public continue to look through the files.

Earlier this year, photographs appearing to show Mountbatten-Windsor kneeling on all fours over a female lying on the ground were released in a new tranche of US documents.

In two of the images he is seen touching the person, who is unidentified and fully clothed, on her stomach. Another image shows him staring directly at the camera.

He has consistently and strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office in mid-February in Norfolk, after Thames Valley Police said it was assessing a complaint over the alleged sharing of confidential material by the former prince with Epstein.

He served as a UK trade envoy between 2001 and 2011.

The newly discovered photograph appears to have been taken in a very similar location to another, which featured next to Lord Mandelson's message in a "birthday book", put together to celebrate Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003.

Emails seen by the BBC appear to show Lord Mandelson and Epstein's personal assistant Lesley Groff discussing where a photo was taken.

After Groff suggested it "might be on Jeffrey's island", Lord Mandelson replied in an email dated 19 July 2013: "I think it was Martha's, the first time I met Jeffrey."

The Daily Telegraph reports the exchange relates to these pictures.

Lord Mandelson was sacked as ambassador after supportive emails he sent to Epstein in 2008, when he was facing charges for sex offences, emerged in the files.

Images of him standing in his underwear have also been released by the DOJ.

The Metropolitan Police launched an investigation last month over allegations that, while he was serving as a government minister, Lord Mandelson passed on market-sensitive government information to Epstein.

Lord Mandelson has not publicly commented in recent weeks on the Epstein files, but the BBC understands his position is he has not acted in any way criminally and that he was not motivated by financial gain.

Epstein died in a Manhattan prison while awaiting his trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019. Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting and trafficking teenage girls for sexual abuse by the financier. (BBC)

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