Allegations could hardly be
I ALWAYS liked Prince Andrew. Friendly, approachable, smiling – in marked contrast to the Queen’s other children who were prickly, regarding the media as
“the enemy”.
He was completely different. They liked skiing and horses – he liked golf and sitting in the sun.
He didn’t even look like them, keeping his hair and piling on the pounds, becoming “The Duke of Pork”, while they stayed fairly slim and spare.
Prince Andrew served with distinction as a helicopter pilot with thetask Force in the Falkland War 39 years ago.the photo on his return to Portsmouth, a red rose clamped between his ample teeth, captured the joy of youth and sheer delight at pulling off an unlikely victory in the South Atlantic.
He was widely admired by men and women alike and was said to be the Queen’s favourite child.
On the day of his engagement to Sarah Ferguson in March 1986, pictured below, ITN’S Anthony Carthew and I interviewed the couple at Buckingham Palace.
For its candour, good humour and telling insights, the interview was judged to be the most revealing royal interview ever.
Their kiss on the Buckingham Palace balcony after the wedding at Westminster Abbey was the real thing. I covered their early foreign tours.the Duke and Duchess of York, as they had become, had the world at their feet, popular, glamorous and able to reach out to ordinary people in a way other royals could not or would not. That’s why I was sorry to see them divorce 10 years later and even sadder to see the Prince become entangled in a legal cat’s cradle that will not be easy to escape; certainly not with his reputation or dignity intact.
The Duchess of York – always Sarah to her ex-husband and never “Fergie”– was brought down by her close relationships with two
American money men, Johnny Bryan and Steve Wyatt. It took one Newyork financier, Jeffrey Epstein, to bring down Prince Andrew.
His ill-advised friendship with the late paedophile has effectively cancelled his role as a working member of the Royal Family, with the increasing legal fallout now ensuring no way back to the privileged life he once knew.
For the Queen’s second son to be unable to travel to America, our most important ally, without the certainty of being served with a subpoena, to appear as a witness in the criminal prosecution of his erstwhile friend Ghislaine Maxwell, or to be slapped with a writ as the respondent in a civil case brought by
Virginia Giuffre, is
nothing short of disastrous. The allegations levelled by Ms Giuffre, formerlyvirginia Roberts, could not be more serious or lurid: that the Prince sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager, when she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Andrew when she was 17 and a minor under US law.
But that’s the thing – it’s US law. It may be mighty but its writ does not run in the realms of Prince Andrew’s mother, the Queen.
In Britain, law is administered and justice delivered in the name of the Queen, in Her Majesty’s courts, by Her Majesty’s judges, most of whom are Queen’s Counsel.
The allegations against the Prince could hardly be worse and it is a PR nightmare for Buckingham Palace, threatening to overshadow the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations next year. It’s hugely damaging to the Prince personally but, it must not be forgotten, he has never been charged with any crime and has always denied any wrongdoing and even meeting the then Miss Roberts.
With such a categorical denial by a Prince of the royal blood, his London lawyers have played a dead bat to the allegations coming from across the Atlantic – “stonewalling”, say the lawyers of Ms Giuffre, now a 38-year-old mother-of-three living in Australia.
That’s certainly the best legal response, however bad the PR fallout may be. It’s a civil case, not a criminal one.the Prince is not the accused and won’t be a legal respondent unless he responds to the writ. If he feels no compunction to do so he cannot be forced.
This is about money, not jail time. Ms Giuffre is seeking unspecified damages. But even if the case goes to court in Newyork, and a jury finds for the plaintiff and awards her many thousands of dollars, it is highly doubtful any such judgment could be enforced in Britain; not if Andrew had taken no part in the trial and not therefore defended himself against the allegations.
In short, if Prince Andrew never enters any country where the US has jurisdiction, he is safe. On top of all other considerations, the age of sexual consent in Britain is 16, not 17 as it is in Newyork, although other US states vary.
I am glad to see Andrew has engaged a PR firm to handle the growing media storm. I only hope he heeds good advice.
Even more worrying than the Giuffre civil case, the Prince should be concerned about the criminal prosecution of Maxwell, 59, who has been living in harsh conditions in an unpleasant remand prison in Brooklyn for more than a year on charges of procuring teenage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse.
She is due to be tried in November. But if she is offered a plea bargain – less jail time in exchange for an admission of guilt and naming prominent men who were friends of Epstein and shared his sexual proclivities and practices – there may be a number of famous men who will find themselves in greater legal peril than even the troubled Prince is right now.
‘He has never been charged
with a crime’