Page ^ Daily Mail, Friday, August 30, 2019
Boris warned
he ‘must do a
deal’ with BBC
on licence fee
BORIS Johnson was yesterday pressed to
strike a deal with the BBC over free TV
licences for the over-75s.
The charity Age UK said the Govern-
ment will be held ‘responsible for find-
ing a resolution’ along with the BBC.
The charity’s intervention followed the
call from Prime Minister last weekend
for the BBC to ‘cough up’ and pay for the
free licence from its own funds.
In a letter to Mr Johnson, Age UK’s
director, Caroline Abrahams, said: ‘We
agree with you that free TV licences for
over-75s should continue but we very
much doubt that asking the BBC to cough
up is likely to be a realistic solution, since
the Corporation is adamant that it can-
not afford the £500 million required.
‘We would hope that the Corporation
and your Government will sit down and
discuss a way forward that allows our
over-75s to retain their free licences.’
The free TV licence was introduced in
2000, but the BBC agreed to take on
responsibility for deciding future policy
and funding for the scheme in 2015. How-
ever, in June it it said it cannot afford to
take on the financial burden – and
announced that from next June free
licences will only be available to over-
75s who claim pension credit.
The decision means 3.7 million pension-
ers will now have to pay £15.50 if they
want a colour TV licence. Dame Helen
Mirren, Sir Lenny Henry and Len Good-
man are among celebrities who have
called for a re-think.IT SEEMS like only
moments ago that
the Cambridges
announced they
were having their
first baby – but now
their second’s off to
school already.
Princess Char-
lotte, four, will join
Thomas’s Battersea
in south London
next Thursday, Ken-
sington Palace has confirmed.
Any first-day nerves should be eased by
the presence of her big brother. Prince
George, six, started at the £19,287-a-year
private school in 2017.
Charlotte’s fees will be nearly 2 per cent
lower, at £18,915, because she is the fami-
ly’s second child to enrol. If Prince Louis
goes there too his fees would be lower
still, at £17,370.
Charlotte, pictured, will be joined by her
parents when she arrives at the school.
Headmaster Simon O’Malley has said staff
were ‘delighted’ the princess was joining
as a pupil, adding that they ‘greatly look
forward to welcoming her’.By George, now
Charlotte’s off to
school already!
Lawyers in
bid to make
Andrew
‘come clean’
Forget climate change – antibiotics
crisis will kill us all first, says NHS chief
Outside court: Virginia Roberts (centre) with lawyer David Boies (right)
obfuscate, I don’t think really is
in his interest, because this is
not going away. There is too
much evidence here for the alle-
gations to simply go away.
‘It’s very hard to take the posi-
tion that you were close and
friendly [with Epstein] and you
were treating the mansion as
your home away from home, yet
you were totally unaware of
what was going on.’
Mr Boies said there ‘has to be
an explanation’ as to why
Andrew attended so many of
Epstein’s parties and why he
was photographed grinning
broadly with his arm around the
bare midriff of Miss Roberts in- Friends of the duke have
insisted his lawyers have ‘seri-
ous doubts’ about the veracity
of the picture – and say he is at
the centre of a ‘witch-hunt’.
But Sigrid McCawley, who also
represents Miss Roberts, said
the FBI has ‘never questioned
the authenticity’ of the photo.
‘The photograph of Prince
Andrew grabbing 17-year-old
Virginia Roberts’s waist in Ghis-
laine Maxwell’s townhouse is
real,’ she said. ‘The FBI has
never questioned its authentic-
ity. Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs
also place Virginia in London at
the time the photograph was
taken. Prince Andrew’s denials
with the help of misinformed
friends and unnamed sources
who have no real knowledge of
the facts are getting louder.
‘But those atmospherics do
not change the evidence and
the facts. The bumper-sticker
denials Prince Andrew employs
will gain him nothing when all
the evidence is made available.’
Buckingham Palace aides told
the Mail this week that the
duke would be willing to help
authorities if approached. Onecourtier said: ‘Members of the
Royal Family would always
co-operate with the police in an
appropriate way.’
However, this does not mean
that he would be willing to be
interviewed by lawyers for
Epstein’s victims.
Last week it emerged that the
Metropolitan Police had decided
not to investigate claims first
made in 2015 that the prince
had sex with Miss Roberts.
But the FBI is investigating
both the claims against Epstein
and the circumstances
around his death.LAWYERS for Jeffrey Epstein’s
victims are considering bringing
a lawsuit to pressure Prince
Andrew to give evidence in the
long-running ‘sex slave’ scandal.
David Boies, chairman of a high-
profile New York law firm, claims
‘there is too much evidence’
connecting the Duke of York to the
paedophile financier ‘for the allega-
tions to simply go away’.
He said the prince was ‘continuing to
delay and obfuscate’ over repeated
claims he had sex with one of Epstein’s
teenage victims. Mr Boies urged Prince
Andrew to agree to an informal inter-
view, as it would be the best way for him
to ‘advance his interests’ if he ‘really
has nothing to hide’.
The lawyer said he has asked to inter-
view the prince and is willing to travel
to London to make the process more
comfortable for him. But if this does
not happen, Mr Boies said he would
consider bringing a lawsuit to pressure
him and other associates of Epstein to
give evidence under oath.
Should Andrew ever set foot in
the US again, he could be ambushed
with a subpoena. This would oblige
him to give evidence on oath – or face
the threat of jail.
‘One of the options is to bring a law-
suit,’ Mr Boies said. ‘I think we and
other counsel in the US are exploring
what the options and possibilities are. I
hope we don’t have to go down that
road but we’d be willing to consider it.’
Mr Boies represents a number of
women who say they were abused by
Epstein when they were teenagers.
One of those is Virginia Roberts, who
claims that she had sex with Andrew on
three occasions when she was 17 years
old. She is now a 36-year-old married
mother-of-three called Virginia Roberts
Giuffre. Miss Roberts is one of 16
women who told a Manhattan court on
Tuesday of their alleged abuse at the
hands of Epstein and his friends.
The prince has strenuously denied
having ‘any form of sexual contact or
relationship’ with Miss Roberts and has
attempted to downplay his friendship
with Epstein, who killed himself in jail
earlier this month at the age of 66.
However, he has failed to answer con-
tinued questions about his behaviour,
particularly his frequent visits to
Epstein’s many homes across the US.
‘If he would sit down and let every-
thing come out, and just come clean,
this is the time to do it,’ Mr Boies told
Sky News. ‘Continuing to delay and
From Arthur Martin
and Daniel Bates in New York
‘Has to be an
explanation’
Daily Mail Reporter
BUGS that cannot be killed by anti-
biotics could wipe out humanity ‘before
climate change does’, England’s chief
medical officer warned yesterday.
Professor Dame Sally Davies said: ‘Antibi-
otics underpin modern medicine – you can’t
have gut surgery, replacement hips, all sorts
of surgery without risking infection.
‘At least 10 million could die every year if
we don’t get on top of this.’
Dame Sally, who leaves her post next
month after nine years, also warned against
importing meat or fish from countries that
‘misuse’ antibiotics in farming after Brexit.
Some strains of bugs including tuberculo-
sis, MRSA and Clostridium difficile no
longer respond to antibiotics that used to
be effective against them.
Overusing the drugs – be it for medicine
or agriculture – means illnesses can adapt
so they stop responding to antibiotics
made to cure them. This means a minor
infection such as a skin wound can provefatal. Dame Sally told Sky News: ‘We
humans are doing it to ourselves, but it
could kill us before climate change does. It
is a very important area and we are under-
investing in sorting it out.’
Official data shows that since 2014 the
UK has cut the amount of antibiotics it
uses by more than 7 per cent. However, the
number of drug-resistant bloodstreaminfections increased by 35 per cent between
2013 and 2017. Asked about post-Brexit
trade deals, Dame Sally said ‘there’s
always a balance in a trade relationship
between economics and standards’.
She warned that the UK ‘should not be
importing beef or other animals where
antibiotics have been misused... because it
leads to problems across the world’.