The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Andrew loses HRH and honorary military titles
The Duke of York will no longer use his HRH title and the Queen has stripped him of his honorary military roles and royal patronages in a dramatic fallout from his civil sexual assault case.
Andrew, who was born an HRH, will not use it in any official capacity, a royal source said.
The move represents the duke’s complete removal from official royal life, and an attempt to distance the royal family from Andrew, who was once second in line to the throne, in the year of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
The development is a major blow for the duke who is facing a court showdown after a judge ruled on Wednesday that Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit against him could go ahead.
A Buckingham Palace statement said: “With the Queen’s approval and agreement, the Duke of York’s military affiliations and royal patronages have been returned to the Queen.
“The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen.”
A royal source said the issue had been widely discussed with the royal family, making it likely the Prince of Wales, as well as Andrew, was involved in crisis talks over the matter.
The decision to remove his military roles and royal patronages will have been a difficult one for the Queen for a son who denies the allegations against him.
Military posts would be redistributed to other members of the family, the source said.
It comes after more than 150 veterans joined forces to express their outrage, writing to the Queen to demand Andrew was removed from the honorary military positions.
Accusing the duke of bringing the services he is associated with into disrepute, the 152 former members of the Royal Navy, RAF and Army said “were this any other senior military officer, it is inconceivable that he would still be in post”.
The Queen is head of the armed forces and honorary military appointments are in her gift.
The Palace said previously the duke’s military appointments were in abeyance after he stepped down from public duties in 2019.
But he retained the roles, leaving eight regiments, including the Royal Regiment of Scotland, of which he was colonel, in limbo.
Ms Giuffre is suing the duke in the US for allegedly sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager.
She claims she was trafficked by convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with Andrew when she was 17 and a minor under US law.
The duke has strenuously denied the allegations.
A source close to the duke said he would “continue to defend himself” against
Ms Giuffre’s allegations following the judge’s decision to dismiss his legal team’s attempt to have the case thrown out.
The source said: “Given the robustness with which Judge Kaplan greeted our arguments, we are unsurprised by the ruling.”
They added: “This is a marathon not a sprint.”
The duke was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, one of the oldest in the Army.
His other British honorary military titles were: Honorary air commodore of RAF Lossiemouth; Colonel-inchief of the Royal Irish Regiment; Colonel-in-chief of the Small Arms School Corps; Commodore-inchief of the Fleet Air Arm; Royal colonel of the Royal Highland Fusiliers; and Deputy colonel-in-chief of The Royal Lancers (Queen Elizabeth’s Own).
“The Duke of York will not undertake any public duties