CHARLES AND ANDREW AT BREAKING POINT
THE CROWN PRINCE REFUSES TO STAND BY HIS EMBATTLED SIBLING
Earlier this year, the Queen held a reception to honour the 50th anniversary of Prince Charles’ investiture as Prince of Wales.
The party had been due to take place in Wales but Charles (70) asked for it to be held in London to make it easier for his relatives to attend. They all did – bar three. Retired Prince Philip (98) doesn’t do events anymore. Prince Edward (55) was on official business elsewhere. And Prince Andrew (59) was a no-show.
“It is pretty extraordinary,” says a source. “One hears tales of tension between the brothers but the more you reflect on this, the more peculiar it seems.”
It was also very unwise. Andrew needs all the allies he can get as he faces accusations that he slept with an underage girl allegedly procured for him by his former friend, the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The billionaire was found dead in a New York jail on August 10 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges – and the scandal of Andrew’s ill-judged association is not going away.
In legal papers for a defamation case, Virginia Roberts Giuffre (now 35) alleges that she slept with Andrew three times, on Epstein’s orders. She subsequently said Andrew “knows what he’s done”.
A 2001 photo shows Andrew with his arm around the waist of Virginia, who was then 17.
Another woman, Johanna Sjoberg, claims in court papers that Andrew touched her breast “in a joking manner” at Epstein’s home when she was 21.
Bizarrely, singer Courtney Love (55) has reportedly told friends that Epstein also tried to set Andrew up with her.
“I was in bed when the doorbell rang at 1am, so put on my fluffy slippers and a dressing gown, and the Queen’s second son was standing there with a protection officer, totally unannounced,” she reportedly told a pal. “He said he had got my address from a mutual friend. He seemed to be looking for sex and was quite flirtatious. In the end he only stayed for around 45 minutes.”
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about these claims is that Andrew was in Epstein’s orbit at all. The billionaire was first found guilty of child sex charges in 2008 and served just 13 months. Although they’d known each other since 1999, Andrew’s friendship with him should have ended then and there. Instead, he visited Epstein in New York four months after he was released from jail.
A friend of both men suggests two reasons Andrew got on with Epstein. “Jeffrey had Andrew put on a pair of sweatpants for the first time in his life,” the friend says. “It was Jeffrey who taught Andrew how to relax.”
The second was more mercenary: “The major reason
Andrew hung out with Jeffrey was to get money for [his ex-wife] Sarah Ferguson. Andrew feels responsible for Sarah. There have been newspaper reports that Sarah got £15,000 [about $30,000] from Jeffrey, but I think that she has actually received hundreds of thousands of dollars from him.”
The association only ended in 2010, after a photo was published of Andrew and Epstein walking together in
New York’s Central Park. Andrew later said the visit to Epstein’s $90 million residence in the city was an “error of judgment”.
Sarah, Duchess of York (60), used the same phrase to apologise for taking Epstein’s money: “I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgment on my behalf... Whenever I can
I will repay the money and will have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again.”
It’s not the first time Andrew’s attraction to wealth and power has raised questions. Royal author Robert Jobson points to what he describes as Andrew’s “inexcusable” actions – “consorting with rich oligarchs in North Africa, the Mideast and the former Soviet Union, and begging friends to bail out Fergie.”
Not to mention the sale of Andrew’s former country house Sunninghill Park for $30 million – $6 million over the asking price – to Kazakh oligarch
Timur Kulibayev, who let it rot.
It raised questions, particularly from Charles. “The Prince of
Wales finds the way his brother conducts his business to be distasteful and inappropriate,” says a former courtier.
Then there are the gifts he’s accepted – including a $50,000 necklace for Princess Beatrice (31) from a convicted gun
smuggler – plus his penchant for expensive flights, leading to the nickname “Air Miles Andy”, and his legendary rudeness. Some British diplomats have dubbed him “HBH”, short for “His Buffoon Highness”.
“None of this has endeared him to Prince Charles, who has a moralistic attitude to royal behaviour,” says the courtier.
Andrew tried simply denying the sex allegations, with a Buckingham Palace statement insisting, “Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue… Any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation.”
But they’ve not gone away, so Andrew has gone on the attack. His people have made it known that they are hiring a photographic forensics expert to prove that the shot in Central Park was set up and that the snap with Roberts was altered to show his fingers around Virginia’s waist.
A palace source told a UK paper that the New York shot was taken from an apartment looking down on the park.
“Only Epstein knew where they were going to walk.”
The reporter who was with the photographer says that’s rubbish. “It was categorically not staged,” says Annette Witheridge.
“The picture was the result of old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting. I know. I was there.”
The FBI also considers the Roberts picture genuine. And now Andrew’s PR, Jason Stein, has resigned after less than a month in the job, with aides saying it was not Stein’s idea to question the photos. This leaves Andrew on his own.
The Central Park photo prompted Andrew’s resignation from his job as a British trade ambassador, which quietly pleased Charles, who issued not a word of regret.
Robert Jobson says, “My understanding is that Prince Charles was less than happy that Andrew was given the role of trade envoy back in 2001 after he left the navy.”
Andrew shrugged off the initial Epstein scandal with his mother’s help – the Queen promptly made him a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order. In royal terms, this put him under her personal protection, so nobody, even
Charles, could criticise him. Andrew then set up a businesspitching network that allows him to continue to travel in style and meet very rich people.
An aide points out, “He’s an adored second son. His mother, the Queen, dotes on him, favours him above all her other children, and excuses his every foible.”
But his big brother doesn’t. One of Charles’ circle says, “Charles is the second-most senior member of the family and is known to take action when and where is necessary. Mostly, he is well informed and will intervene where it is appropriate to do so.”
So far, he has not found it appropriate to back his brother.
Penny Junor, a royal author who is close to Charles, hints that Andrew’s time may be up very soon. “Andrew has been an embarrassment over the years on all sorts of levels,” she says.
“If Andrew bowed out of royal duties altogether, Charles would be delighted. But to some extent he is currently protected by his mother. When she dies, and Charles assumes full control, who knows what will happen?”
Robert Jobson thinks it will be brutal. “When Charles ascends the throne he’d like the royal family to be streamlined – he wants a smaller, more costeffective monarchy.”
Regardless of whether he can make the Epstein allegations go away, Andrew could finally be out of luck – and out on his ear.