British minister recounts phone theft amid Epstein disclosures

LONDON — A British minister whose messages with Peter Mandelson are absent from the public disclosures forced by the Jeffrey Epstein scandal recounted Tuesday the “nightmare” of having his phone stolen.

In an interview with Sky News, Nick Thomas-Symonds — the Cabinet minister overseeing the U.K.’s “reset” in relations with the EU — described how one of a group of three people on mopeds swiped his device last Oct. 15 while he was walking near the Home Office.

“Unfortunately as well, I lost not only WhatsApp, I also lost, unfortunately, personal photos of mine going back a few years. It was a nightmare, actually, in terms of recovering items,” he said.

Asked about missing exchanges with Mandelson on his personal phone, Thomas-Symonds said the pair had swapped messages of congratulations on their respective appointments, and were in a discussion about the former Labour peer’s campaign to be elected chancellor of Oxford University.

U.K. lawmakers in February demanded the government publish communications between Mandelson, ministers, and officials in an attempt to understand what the government knew about the ambassador’s relationship with Epstein. Ministers and officials were asked to hand over any messages with Mandelson to comply with MPs’ demands.

Thomas-Symonds is not the only senior government figure whose phone was stolen last fall, in the weeks after Mandelson was sacked as U.S. ambassador to Washington.

Morgan McSweeney, who at the time was Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief adviser, reported his own phone had been snatched by a man on a bike five days after Thomas-Symonds on Oct. 20.