Duke ‘can’t have job back, Charles tells princesses’
PRINCE Charles has rejected a plea by Princess Beatrice and her sister Eugenie for their father to be allowed to carry out royal duties again, it was claimed yesterday.
The future king was said to have told the sisters there was ‘no chance’ of Prince Andrew returning to public life following a series of scandals.
Charles, 73, was said to be ‘resolute’ that his younger brother should not be allowed to resume royal life or use his HRH title, according to The Sun on Sunday.
He reportedly met Beatrice, 34, and Eugenie, 32, at his home on the Birkhall Estate in Aberdeenshire, to discuss their concerns for their father. Days earlier he had a ‘business meeting’ with the Duke of York, 62, to allow him to plead his case.
A source told the newspaper that Charles listened to all three, but that their pleas ‘fell on deaf ears’.
The Queen stripped Andrew of his royal roles in January after a series of controversies surrounding his friendship with the billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
He was initially forced to step back from public life after a 2019 BBC Newsnight interview in which he spoke about Epstein and denied claims that he had had sex with one of the tycoon’s trafficking victims, Virginia Roberts.
She accused him of sexually assaulting her three times in 2001, when she was 17, and brought a civil case against him in the US.
He denied any wrongdoing but settled the case in New York in February for a reported £12million.
Four months later, he asked the Queen to reinstate him as colonelin-chief of the Grenadier Guards and let him return to major events.
But Charles and Prince William stepped in to ensure the Duke of York remained distanced from public life. Andrew has since met the Queen during her Balmoral break to hold ‘intense talks’ about his future. The source said: ‘Andrew desperately wants and needs something to do with his life.
‘His family are close so it’s natural Beatrice and Eugenie want to get involved. This development shows just how intense everything is getting. But there will be no return to public royal duty for Prince Andrew.’ Clarence House and a spokesman for Andrew declined to comment.
Meanwhile, a Russian millionaire who donated £500,000 to one of Charles’s charities has claimed that £200,000 was effectively ‘stolen’.
Banker Dmitry Leus, 52, received a letter of thanks from Charles after his family gave £500,000 to The Prince’s Foundation in 2020 to help the Dumfries House project, The Mail on Sunday reported.
But the charity’s ethics committee ruled that Mr Leus – who was wrongly jailed for four years in Russia on money-laundering charges which were later overturned – was not an appropriate donor, and the gift was rejected.
The Foundation returned £100,000, which was all it received after the donation passed through the hands of middle-men and fixers who brokered the gift. Mr Leus recovered a further £200,000 but the rest is still outstanding, it was reported.
The Foundation said it would be ‘inappropriate to comment on an ongoing investigation’.
‘Needs something to do with his life’