WATER OFF A DUKE’S BACK
ANDREW ALL SMILES BEFORE TRIP TO MIDDLE-EAST AS FERGIE ARRIVES AT PALACE TO GIVE HER SUPPORT
IT APPEARED to be business as usual for Prince Andrew as he faced the world yesterday after dramatically stepping down from royal duties.
The Duke of York waved as he left his Windsor Great Park home in his £170,000 Bentley to visit the Queen ahead of a trip to Bahrain to promote his Pitch@Palace initiative.
Tomorrow he will attend a lavish hotel reception in the Arab kingdom as he carries on with the scheme despite a string of backers pulling out over his links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The royal, whose supportive ex-wife the Duchess of York arrived smiling at Buckingham Palace after he met the Queen there, is said to have quit official duties at his mother’s insistence.
She has withdrawn the £249,000
Sovereign Grant allowance that he received each year for his public role – but he will be given an income from her private funds.
Andrew announced on Wednesday he would be stepping away for the ‘foreseeable future’ as pressure mounted on him after his car-crash interview on BBC’s Newsnight at the weekend.
But he is expected to still be the guest of honour at the Pitch@Palace reception tomorrow.
Buckingham Palace said he would from now on work privately on his cherished scheme, which helps entrepreneurs find backers.
The question of whether he will have to change its name is said to be up for discussion.
And it remains to be seen if he can make it a success after backers, including accountancy giant KPMG, withdraw support and others such as Barclays expressed concern.
Huddersfield university revealed yesterday Andrew would step down as its chancellor, as students had called for earlier in the week.
And the Outward Bound Trust said it had accepted his resignation, thanking him for his ‘support over many years’.
The 59-year-old had inherited both roles from his father Prince Philip.
Meanwhile, a lawyer for some of the victims of financier Epstein warned there could be a diplomatic incident if Andrew does not go to the US to face questioning. The prince – who denies having sex three times with American Virginia Roberts Giuffre in 2001, when she was 17 and allegedly Epstein’s ‘sex slave’ – has said he is willing to help investigators.
But Lisa Bloom told BBC Breakfast: ‘It’s not going to be easy to subpoena someone like Prince Andrew – he’s obviously not walking down the street where a process server can justju hand him a piece of paper, it’s a lot more complicated.
‘If he refused to come, we may have a diplomatic situation – I hope it doesn’t come to that. I take him at his word that he says he is going to co-operate and I hope that’s what will happen.’ Ms Roberts Giuffre, a 35-year-old mum-of-three now living in Australia, made her first comments since the prince’s TV appearance, saying it was time for the world to ‘evolve’. Andrew was condemned after the interview for offering no sympathy for the victims of convicted offender Epstein, found dead in August while in custody in New York over sex trafficking claims. Republic, which campaigns for an elected head of state, called his decision to step aside ‘smoke and mirrors’ to protect the monarchy.