Did Andrew never think of his own daughters?
JUST when you thought things couldn’t get any worse for Prince Andrew, a new Jeffrey Epstein accuser — known as Jane Doe 15 — has emerged, alleging that after the financier had taken her virginity, aged 15, he tried to entice her to his private island on the pretext that the Duke of York was going to be there.
Jane Doe is now 31. Which means that, at the time the alleged abuse by Epstein took place, she would have been the same age as Andrew’s eldest daughter, Princess Beatrice.
How that must make poor Beatrice and her sister Eugenie feel, I can only imagine.
It is never easy being born into fame. But Andrew’s daughters are now facing something far more traumatic: the notion that their own father may have turned a blind eye to sexual abuse — when what he should have been doing is trying to put a stop to it.
I suppose it is possible that in the earlier stages of his friendship with Epstein, Prince Andrew might have missed the warning signs that with hindsight seem so clear.
But, by 2010, after Epstein had served time for procuring underage prostitutes, there was no doubt what kind of man he was; yet the Prince still saw fit to spent four days under his roof.
It is clear that, whatever else Andrew may or may not have previously known about Epstein’s predilections, from that moment on he failed completely in his moral responsibilities. Not just as a member of the Royal Family and a decent human being, but also, and perhaps more importantly, as a father.
He knew the whole story, and yet still he rode high on Epstein’s hog.
When pressed on this by Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis, the Prince justified his decision by saying it was a ‘convenient place to stay’. He then added, most bizarrely, that his judgment ‘was probably coloured by my tendency to be too honourable’.
‘Honourable’ is not how I would describe a man who accepts hospitality from someone convicted of abusing young girls — girls so similar in age to his own daughters.
Unless he didn’t see them that way. This is the only plausible explanation. Quite simply, Andrew did not equate the wraiths who flitted around Epstein’s residences in bikinis, waiting to administer ‘foot massages’, with his two girls, safely at home in their cosseted lives. In fact, he implied as much himself in that interview. Epstein’s handmaidens were merely peripheral — in his own words — ‘staff’.
That may also explain why he did not think it necessary to express regret or sadness at what Epstein’s victims had endured.
Quite simply, he didn’t see these girls because they’re not the sort of people a prince needs to concern himself with.
It’s an attitude that seems so at odds with the low-key approach of younger royals such as Princes William and Harry, while Princess Diana went out of her way to connect with so-called ordinary people.
Not so Andrew. An alumni of the Princess Margaret school of royalty (no coincidence that they are both younger siblings of more distinguished royals who earn, rather than demand, our respect), he continues to inhabit a tiny corner of monarchy where privilege still exists without accountability and where being a royal automatically marks you out as superior to the rest.
Andrew’s behaviour over the years belies this, not just in terms of his own conduct, but also when it comes to his close family.
It doesn’t matter how badly his ex- wife, Sarah Ferguson, has behaved. She is still ‘the Duchess’ — as he grandly referred to her in the interview — and therefore, in his mind, entitled to status and respect.
THE same is true of his daughters. He has lobbied the Queen and Prince Charles to give them more prominence, and was insistent that younger daughter Eugenie be afforded full royal honours for her wedding last year.
Despite not being a working royal and being only 10th in line to the throne, she was married with full pomp and circumstance — at a cost of £2 million to the taxpayer, for security and the clean-up operation.
Beatrice is planning to marry next year, and it is hard to see how her special day can fail to be overshadowed by this whole affair.
The bitter irony for Andrew, meanwhile, is that in failing to do right by other men’s daughters, he has contributed to the distress of his own.