The advisers with an (even more) impossible job

‘He’s a product of his upbringing’

‘Commands fees of £1,000 an hour’

HIS insistence on telling Prince Andrew only the best case scenario has earned him the nickname ‘Good News Gary’.

But even the beleaguered Duke of York’s trusted solicitor must be struggling to find positives in the bombshell ruling that a civil sex abuse case against the prince can proceed to trial.

Gary Bloxsome, from law firm Blackfords, was appointed by Andrew in January 2020 to help mastermind his response to allegations made by Virginia Roberts that she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and forced to have sex with the Duke on at least three separate occasions.

Despite a relatively unheralded CV, the 48-year-old is said to have endeared himself so closely to the Duke that he has become his ‘inner circle of one’.

The spotlight is again on Andrew’s advisers after Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed his claim to have the civil lawsuit in New York thrown out on a technicality.

Mr Bloxsome was appointed to help with any criminal matters arising out of a separate ongoing FBI investigation into the activities of Jeffrey Epstein and any inquiries which might be conducted by Scotland Yard. A biography says he specialises in helping ‘ultra-high-net-worth individuals in international jurisdictions’. His most publicised cases include defending a footballer who was involved in a nightclub brawl.

Question were raised over the Duke’s inner circle after his disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview. He attempted to rebut Miss Roberts’s claims by insisting he was unable to sweat - she alleged he had perspired heavily at Tramp nightclub the evening she slept with him in London in March 2001.

His other eye-raising claim was that he had been at a Pizza Express in Woking that day at a children’s party his daughter Beatrice had attended.

The Duke was convinced to take part in the interview by his private secretary, Amanda Thirsk, his ‘gatekeeper’ since 2012, despite the reservations of his public relations adviser Jason Stein.

Mr Stein quit in the wake of the interview while Mrs Thirsk is said to have received a fivefigure payout when the Duke was forced within days to step back from royal duties.

Following the disastrous interview, Stephen Ferguson,a barrister friend of the family who has acted for the London gangland boss Terry Adams as well as ‘Britain’s most violent prisoner’ Charles Bronson, is said to have helped compile a formal team to aid the Duke.

As well as Mr Bloxsome, Mark Gallagher, a PR guru who has worked at ITV, was brought on board to brief the press and discredit Miss Roberts’s allegations. He left shortly after.

The Duke’s most high-profile adviser has been extradition lawyer Clare Montgomery QC. She shot to fame in 1999 when she battled to save Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from extradition after he was accused of multiple allegations of human rights abuses.

A senior barrister at Matrix Chambers, Ms Montgomery is thought to command fees of around £1,000 an hour.

But since Miss Roberts launched her civil claim in New York in August last year, the Duke has been unable to rely solely on his British team.

After a period of silence on the allegations, the Duke hired California-based lawyer Andrew Brettler, who was accused of victim-blaming when he attached newspaper articles to Andrew’s response describing his accuser as a ‘money-hungry sex kitten’.

Mr Brettler, speaking on behalf of the Duke, added that Miss Roberts was solely seeking a ‘payday’ in making the claims. The allegations will finally be aired in court later this year.