The British Government asked the U.S. government to destroy FBI dossiers on Lord Mountbatten after it was discovered in a wartime file that the royal was accused of being a pedophile.

Andrew Lownie, a historian, author and columnist for Daily Mail, claims that the World War II-era file held information that Mountbatten was a "homosexual with a lusting for young boys," according to Daily Mail.

Lownie Had to Fight for Files

Lownie said that he had made a request to the FBI for files it held regarding Mountbatten, but was told that the files had been destroyed.

When he inquired as to when that happened, he was told "after you asked for them."

The dossier had originally been released in 2019 because of a Freedom of Information request. That's apparently when Mountbatten's pedophilia came to light, according to Irish Central.

Mountbatten was also a mentor to his grand-nephew King Charles before being was assassinated by the IRA in 1979 in County Sligo, Ireland, where he frequently vacationed. He was killed as a result of a bomb had been planted on his fishing boat, according to The Telegraph.

Former British Prime Minister Wanted Archive of Mountbatten Family Made Public

Britain's former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wanted a family archive of the Mountbatten family opened and fully available to the public, including Mountbatten's personal diaries. However, though there has been an expensive legal battle involved with that.

Lownie spent  £250,000 in his efforts to get access to the diaries and private correspondence between Mountbatten and his wife, according to The Telegraph.

The historic information is kept at Southampton University as part of an archive that had been saved in 2011 for the nation as the result of a £2.85 million fundraising campaign.

Mountbattens Known as “Persons of Extremely Low Morals”

The file includes information about an interview between the FBI and Elizabeth de la Poer Beresford, Baroness Decies, in which she mentioned that Mountbatten and his wife "were persons of extremely low morals."

She went on to talk about how Mountbatten was "known to be a homosexual with a perversion for young boys," according to Daily Mail.

Legal Case Filed Regarding Alleged Abuses

A legal case was filed by Irish law firm KRW, and hearings started in October of 2022. The case alleges that Mountbatten sexually assaulted several underage boys at Kincora North Road Children's Home in Belfast in the late 70s, according to Republic World.

KRW released a statement about a case in which they are representing one of the survivors, which is from October of 2022, and was picked up by Republic World.

The statement notes that KRW is acting specifically on behalf of Arthur Smyth, "a survivor of historic institutional abuse in the late 1970s East Belfast," though there are believed to be additional survivors of abuse.

KRW names several "institutions" against which KRW "issued pre action letters of claim."

The specific institutions and people named include The Business Services Organization, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Secretary of State, Chief Constable of PSNI and The Department of Health.

It alleges that there was "negligence and breach of duty of care in relation to Arthur's time spent in Kincora and North Road Children's Home when he was a young boy."

Kevin Winters of KRW's Historic Abuse Redress Department said in the statement, "I commend Arthur's resilience in taking this case and indeed his bravery in going public for the first time."

Winters went on to note that it's common for abuse survivors to remain silent "for reasons of obvious sensitivity."

Smyth alleges that he was only 11 years-old at the time of the abuse, and that the abuse included mental, physical and sexual abuse.