Game of Thrones: The Prince, the Playgirl and Her Majesty
All eyes are on Prince Andrew, following Ghislaine Maxwell’s arrest – as the Queen’s new ‘annus horribilis’ continues…
He went to great pains to ally himself with socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and stressed their friendship during his fateful Newsnight interview last November, but the Duke of York may well be regretting that decision this week.
The power and wealth of Ghislaine’s father – the late disgraced newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell – opened doors that allowed his daughter to meet the Prince. But the resulting decades-long friendship is now a Palace embarrassment. The former naval helicopter pilot has seen his credibility called into question, and the Queen has ordered her son to step down from official duties.
As the pressure mounts, and the story unfolds, it is difficult to see how it will end.
Despite Ghislaine Maxwell evading charges for almost a year for her alleged involvement in the Jeffrey Epstein abuse case, the FBI arrested her last week, believing they had strong enough evidence for the charges to stick. The longtime associate of convicted sex offender and alleged paedophile Epstein has been accused of recruiting and abusing girls in a sextrafficking ring, leaving her facing up to 35 years in prison. She has previously denied any wrongdoing.
Gloria Allred, a lawyer representing several of Epstein’s victims, said:
‘If Ghislaine becomes a “cooperating witness” she might talk about everyone who might have been in Epstein’s homes in London, Manhattan, Palm Beach and New Mexico.
‘ We know Prince Andrew was in the homes in both London and Manhattan, so if she is going to cooperate, Prince Andrew might want to cooperate…’
Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell last August, while awaiting trial in a Florida jail on new sex trafficking charges, involving girls as young as 14.
One of his victims, Victoria Roberts (now Giuffre), alleges she slept with Prince Andrew – a claim that he categorically denies. He says that he has no recollection of meeting her.
‘He knows exactly what he has done,’ Giuffre said of the Prince, claiming she met him on a trip to London with Maxwell and Epstein in 2001 at Maxwell’s house. Last week, the woman who says she has waited decades for justice finally saw Maxwell arrested in a small, sleepy town in New Hampshire and charged with ‘recruiting, transporting and grooming girls’.
‘That’s about as serious as it can get,’ said Allred.
Investigative journalist Tom Bower says of Maxwell, ‘Ghislaine was the youngest and absolute spoilt brat of Maxwell’s nine children…
‘She was like her father and he encouraged her to adopt his worst characteristics — arrogance and rudeness, tempered by an ability to charm when required.’
If the Queen had any hopes of Prince Andrew being allowed to distance himself from the Epstein scandal, the arrest of Maxwell, now 58, will have dashed those hopes.
Her alleged role is as Epstein’s ‘chief enabler’ – who brought the girls to him.
‘So far, Prince Andrew has not spoken to the US authorities about his former friend.
‘He’s been avoiding and evading and not providing his statement,’ said Gloria Allred. ‘The question is, when is he going to tell what he knows?’
The Duke’s legal team says he remains ‘ bewildered’ by the accusations as his offers to cooperate, by his own legal team, have been met with no response.
Royal author Nigel Cawthorne says ‘Andrew has been involved in ‘controversy in the past’. And this is not the first of unwanted headlines for the Prince.
In his younger days, his womanising earned him the nickname Randy Andy, then there was Fake Sheikh-gate in 2010 (when now ex-wife Sarah Ferguson was caught on tape asking for £500k to introduce an undercover reporter to Andrew).
There was also Sarah’s infamous toe-sucking photo with her ‘financial advisor’ in 1992, which led to their divorce, rumblings over the Prince’s love of using helicopters and planes rather than trains and cars, earning him the nickname ‘Air Miles Andy’. Plus, odd associations with Libyan gun smugglers and cabinet members during the Gaddafi regime.
But there is a small glimmer of good news for the Prince. The charges against Maxwell relate to the mid-Nineties – before he met Jeffrey Epstein. It remains to be seen whether Ghislaine will refuse to take any potential plea bargain deals…
Either way, this story is not going away soon.
Andrew normally jets off to Spain for golf holidays in the summer, but that seems unlikely now.
Hopefully, the Queen will be out of lockdown soon and able to enjoy her summer holiday in Balmoral – a break she is no doubt in need of as she ponders, again, the future for her second son…