On Wednesday evening, a man in a balaclava sprinted after Prince Andrew's car in Norfolk. By Thursday, sources close to the former Duke were describing him as "deeply shaken." By Friday, Radar Online was reporting something altogether more alarming: that Andrew isn't just shaken. He's "quaking with fear." Specifically, sources claim, fear that he is being targeted not by random protesters or Epstein-motivated vigilantes, but by people who would prefer he never makes it to a courtroom at all. People, sources suggest, on "both sides of the pond" who have very good reasons to want his story to end before it's fully told.
The Epstein shadow is doing most of the psychological work here. Jeffrey Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019. The official verdict was suicide. The conspiracy theories that followed that verdict, about who had means, motive, and access, have never fully dissipated. Andrew watched all of it from Windsor. He watched the inquest. He watched the documentaries. He watched the same questions come around again and again with no clean resolution. And now, in 2026, with his own February arrest on record and the final Epstein documents public, insiders claim that Andrew has made a direct psychological connection between Epstein's fate and what he fears may be planned for his own. He doesn't think the man in the balaclava was a lone actor. He thinks the target on his back has a very specific address.
The important caveat has to come early in a story like this: paranoia and legitimate threat assessment are not the same thing. A man in Andrew's position, with his history, his legal exposure, and the scale of public hostility he's currently generating, has real reasons to take security seriously. The Wolferton incident proved that. But the "assassination by powerful figures" claim is a different register of fear entirely, and Andrew's team walking it into the press has a political function as well as a personal one. He wants his state protection back. "He fears for his life" is a more compelling argument for that than "he feels uncomfortable in Norfolk." Both things may be simultaneously true.
The reported state of mind, per Radar Online
"Quaking with fear."
Believes powerful figures on "both sides of the pond" would be "happier if he were dead" than if he were to testify or face a full trial.
Note: These are claims from anonymous sources speaking to Radar Online. They have not been independently verified and should be read with appropriate scepticism. Andrew's team has not publicly confirmed the specific assassination fear.
The Pressure Cooker: How Andrew Got Here
2019
Jeffrey Epstein dies in a Manhattan jail cell
Official verdict: suicide. Conspiracy theories about who might have wanted Epstein silenced circulate immediately and have never been conclusively resolved. Andrew, still a working royal, watches from the UK.
November 2019
The Newsnight interview
Andrew's BBC appearance becomes one of the most widely ridiculed interviews in recent memory. He steps back from royal duties shortly after.
2022
Met Police protection stripped. Civil settlement with Virginia Giuffre.
Andrew loses state-funded security. Agrees a financial settlement with Giuffre without admitting liability. Moves to private security, paid for by King Charles.
February 2026
Arrested on his 66th birthday. Epstein files drop.
Arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Released under investigation. The final DOJ Epstein document release follows weeks later, naming Andrew hundreds of times and re-energising public hostility.
May 6, 2026
Balaclava confrontation, Wolferton. "Quaking with fear" reports follow.
Alex Jenkinson, 39, approaches Andrew with a weapon while he walks the corgis. Andrew retreats to his car. Jenkinson sprints after the vehicle. Andrew's fear reportedly escalates from specific to existential.
Fear vs. Fact: Reading the "Assassination" Claim Carefully
What Andrew reportedly fears
That powerful figures connected to the Epstein network, on "both sides of the pond," would prefer he never testifies or faces a full courtroom. That the balaclava man wasn't a lone actor. That Epstein's 2019 jail death is a model for what might happen to him.
What the evidence actually shows
Alex Jenkinson, 39, is a man from Stowmarket who pleaded not guilty to threatening behaviour. There is no reported evidence linking him to any organised group. The Wolferton incident is a real and serious security failure. The "assassination conspiracy" dimension remains unverified.
The distinction between those two columns matters enormously. Andrew's security concerns are legitimate. The Wolferton incident proved, concretely, that Marsh Farm is accessible and that private security has limits. Those facts justify a genuine review of his arrangements. But the leap from "a man in a balaclava confronted me on a public path" to "powerful Epstein-connected figures are planning my murder" is a significant one, and it's worth being precise about which parts of the fear are grounded in verified evidence and which parts are the product of a mind under extraordinary stress.
That's not to dismiss Andrew's psychological state. A man who has been publicly shamed, legally exposed, arrested, evicted, stripped of every title, and recently chased to his car by a masked man with a weapon is a man under genuine and sustained pressure. Extreme stress does not produce reliable threat assessment. It produces hypervigilance, pattern-matching in noise, and a tendency to connect disparate dots into a coherent threat narrative. Whether Andrew's fears are real or constructed by his mental state, they are clearly consuming him. And the people around him are letting them flow directly into the press.
"Insiders claim Andrew is 'haunted' by Jeffrey Epstein's fate and believes powerful figures 'on both sides of the pond' would be 'happier if he were dead' than if he testified in open court."
Sources close to Andrew, as cited by Radar Online, May 2026
The Security Demands: What Andrew Is Asking For
🛡️ 24/7 armed SAS-trained detail
Andrew is reportedly requesting a protection unit equivalent to the one stripped in 2022. He views his current private team as "amateurs" compared to state-funded protection. This would require a Home Office decision and would be publicly visible.
Status: not granted
🚗 Armoured vehicle movements only
Andrew reportedly refuses to leave Marsh Farm except in armoured cars. This is already his practice, but he's pushing for a formal protocol rather than an informal arrangement.
Status: already doing this
🏰 Panic room infrastructure at Marsh Farm
Sources describe a "fortress-like" mentality. Andrew reportedly trusts almost nobody in his remaining staff, fearing some may be "compromised." The installation of an electric fence at his permanent Sandringham residence is already underway.
Status: installation ongoing
The King's Dilemma: Compassion vs. Political Reality
King Charles
Position: concerned but constrained
Reportedly "deeply concerned" about his brother's state of mind and physical safety. Currently funding Andrew's private security out of his own finances. Caught between genuine fraternal worry and advice from William that granting the security demands would be a "PR catastrophe."
Current stance: concerned, not acting
Prince William
Position: hold the line
Reportedly advising Charles to remain firm. William's view: Andrew's "paranoia" is being weaponised as a bargaining chip to claw back privileges, security infrastructure, and ultimately a version of the protected life he lost in 2022. Granting it rewards the behaviour.
Current stance: no concessions
William's read is the colder of the two, but it's not entirely without merit. The timing of these leaks, the "quaking with fear" language flowing into Radar Online immediately after the Wolferton incident, has the hallmarks of a coordinated communication strategy rather than an uncontrolled emotional response. You don't get precise quotes about "both sides of the pond" and SAS-trained details and "happier if he were dead" from a man who is purely paralysed by fear. You get them from a man whose team has decided that the best way to apply pressure to the Home Office and Buckingham Palace is to make the personal security case as vividly as possible in the press.
That doesn't mean the fear isn't real. It doesn't mean the security risk isn't genuine. It means both things are being managed simultaneously, the genuine fear and the strategic use of it, and that the palace and the Home Office are experienced enough to know the difference. Charles's "concern" without action reflects that knowledge. He isn't dismissing the threat. He's just not being bounced by the press strategy that's wrapped around it.
The Middle East Option: Exile as the Endgame
The controversial "solution" now in circulation
Multiple "wealthy associates" in the Middle East have reportedly offered Andrew a "diplomatic villa" with private, fully funded security as a way to escape the hostile environment in the UK. The option would remove him from the British press cycle, from Parliamentary debate about the succession, from the Epstein-adjacent threat environment, and from the legal proceedings currently keeping him "under investigation." It would also, critics note, remove him from any future accountability process. The King is said to be aware of the option but has not responded to it.
The Middle East exile option is the one that raises the most serious questions, because it has a precedent problem. A man who is released under investigation for misconduct in public office, who faces ongoing legal exposure connected to one of the most significant sex trafficking cases in modern history, relocating to a jurisdiction with no extradition treaty with the UK would not simply be a personal security decision. It would be a legal one. And it would raise questions about who was facilitating that relocation and what the "diplomatic villa" arrangement actually represents in legal terms.
For the palace, the Middle East option is a grenade with the pin already wobbling. If Andrew goes, and the story becomes "Prince Andrew flees to the Middle East ahead of potential trial," the reputational damage to the Crown is incalculable. If Andrew stays, a man who is terrified, politically toxic, and increasingly difficult to protect continues to generate exactly the kind of headlines that William's "internet mop-up" operation was designed to contain. There is no clean option here. There is only the least damaging sequence of bad ones. And whichever sequence gets chosen, Andrew is somewhere in the middle of it, reportedly quaking, and genuinely not sure who to trust.