A top university repeatedly blocked questions about its controversial handling of a royal family archive, telling press officers to “ignore” journalists and let calls go to the answerphone.

It follows a four-year battle by the University of Southampton to prevent diaries and correspondence from Lord and Lady Mountbatten from being made public. Born in 1900, Lord Mountbatten served as a mentor to King Charles and was seen as one of the most trusted and influential figures in the royal family.

The university purchased the diaries in 2011 for £2.8m using public money and pledged to “ensure public access” to the files. They were said to be of “immense national and historical importance”, covering major historical events such as the independence of India.

But when the historian Andrew Lownie asked for access under the Freedom of Information Act in 2015, his request was refused – triggering a lengthy legal dispute that cost him his “life savings”.

It emerged that the Cabinet Office had supported Southampton Uni’s decision to close the files, sparking accusations of a “disgraceful interference” by the government.

Eventually, almost all of the royal archive was published online on the eve of a legal hearing. The diaries contain details of their relationships with other senior royals and Lord Mountbatten’s role in the partition of India.

But Lownie remains out of pocket and serious questions remain about the way Southampton University handled the case.

Earlier this year, openDemocracy sent a series of questions to the university, including asking what authority the Cabinet Office had to review the archive in the first place. But all of our questions were repeatedly ignored.

Speaking over the phone, a university press officer admitted: “We have been told that for certain reasons we're not able to disclose certain information about this.”

The university immediately denied it had gagged its staff, but internal emails obtained by openDemocracy now reveal how officials staged a coordinated attempt to block public scrutiny.

Press officers privately agreed they “should ignore” our enquiries and “let the answerphone get it”.

“Some people are just so pushy,” said one message. “You can tell he’s just waiting for you to say something he can run with.”

"He's incredibly slippery," said another message.

“I have suggested that… if he calls again, to ignore it.”

The university initially sent a generic statement about the case, but it did not address any of the questions posed by openDemocracy.

When we pressed the university on whether they were prepared to answer any questions at all, press officers privately agreed to block us altogether. One said: “I am not responding to this guy any further.”

Speaking to openDemocracy, Labour MP Dan Carden said: “These diaries were purchased using public money. The public has a right to know what’s in them and a right to know how much public money the government has spent trying to prevent their release.”

“Citizens should not have to spend their life savings fighting to access information that should be available to the public.

He added: “This story points to a culture of secrecy and cover-up in our public institutions. The government’s lack of transparency and disdainful approach to freedom of information should concern us all.”

Internal emails from Southampton University also suggest that ignoring questions about the archive is common practice. Press officers talked about sending “our standard statement as per usual,” instead of responding to specifics. Yet the case has thrown up a series of issues for the university which it has never publicly addressed or commented on.

The initial idea to make parts of the archive secret came from the university’s own chief archivist at the time, professor Chris Woolgar. In an email to the Cabinet Office, previously reported by Private Eye, he said: “I don’t believe these should be available to researchers… given their many references to the royal family.”

A government official responded: “We tend to agree with you about the diaries, and we do really think we should keep these closed, given the royal material which you have already spotted… I would suggest a closure period of 10 years.”

But Woolgar went on to suggest that he should edit a book based on his exclusive access to the archive. His proposal said that publication of any material from the records would be “entirely in the discretion of the government” and “treated sensitively”.

The professor told openDemocracy that he has since retired from the university and has “moved on to other business”.

Andrew Lownie is now fighting to see copies of internal emails about the case, and believes that several key messages are being wrongly withheld by both the university and the Cabinet Office.

Speaking to openDemocracy, he said: “It is clear that Southampton are being very evasive and one has to ask: what are they hiding?”

He added: “The university’s council and vice chancellors have many questions to answer including why, as a Russell Group University, they are preventing access to archives bought with public monies to be available to all, and kowtowing to the government over papers freely sold by the family and which if they had gone elsewhere would have been open a decade ago.”