Daily Mail, Monday, August 19, 2019 Page 15
QQQBy Michael
Cole
Infamous:
Photo with
Virginia
Roberts
and Miss
MaxwellI
HAVE always liked Prince
Andrew. I interviewed him and
Sarah Ferguson for BBC TV
News shortly before their
wedding in 1986 and it was one
of the most spontaneous, happy
and candid royal interviews ever
given up to that date.
The marriage was a true love match
and the whole nation rejoiced. The
couple teased the crowd who were
demanding a kiss on the Buckingham
Palace balcony.
But the newly-weds needed no encourage-
ment at all to comply. It was a smacker.
With the marriage of the Prince and
Princess of Wales under real strain at the
time and Camilla Parker Bowles back on
the scene, at least one of the Queen’s
children seemed to have married for the
right reasons.
And her favourite child too, a genuine war
hero who had returned from the Falklands
War with a rose clenched between his ample
set of teeth. But then it all went wrong, end-
ing in divorce ten years later.
Fergie’s many and lurid indiscretions and
Andrew’s long absences in the Royal Navy
were blamed for putting a strain on the
marriage. To my mind, it would have been
far better had he stayed in the service.
It would have kept him away from people
like Ghislaine Maxwell and the billionaire
financier Jeffrey Epstein.
How he was unable to see that he was
being used by them for his royal connec-
tions and to boost their egos is simply
beyond my understanding.
It is a fine thing to be born a prince. But
the man appears to have no judgment. If he
has anyone telling him how badly some
aspects of his lifestyle are likely to
be perceived in the real world, he is clearly
not listening.
He was out of his depth as a trade
representative for this country, unfailingly
mixing with precisely the wrong sort of
foreign despots and oligarchs.
And then being surprised whenever any-
one questioned his conduct. He
forged close links with Azerbaijan’s
president Ilham Aliyev whose regime
is said to have rigged elections and
thrown political opponents in jail
and tortured them. He met the ruler
of Turkmenistan even though the
country was ranked by an anti-cor-
ruption group as the world’s sixth
most corrupt out of 178 surveyed.
As I say, I have always regarded
Prince Andrew as the most pleasant
and down-to-earth of the Queen’s
children. Which is why it is so sad he
has made such a hash of things.
Consorting with a sexual pervert
like Epstein, even after he had been
convicted of serious crimes against
girls as young as the Prince’s own
daughters at the time, is not the
conduct of any decent person, let
alone a Prince of the Royal Blood.
Yet Andrew is reported to have
taken Epstein to three of the
Queen’s homes: Windsor Castle,
Sandringham and Balmoral.
The new pictures from a video
taken in 2008, in which Prince
Andrew is seen inside Epstein’s
Manhattan mansion, furtively
poking his head round the oak frontdoor and waving to a young girl as
she leaves, are truly shocking.
How can he not have known what
had been going on in that house?
Why did he not cut off contact
immediately when Epstein had been
convicted and sent to prison?D
Id he simply ignore the fact
that his billionaire chum was
at the time on a sex offend-
ers’ register? did Epstein
have something on him? Or was it a
matter of misjudged loyalty?
Then there is the now infamous
photograph of the Prince with his
arm around the bare midriff of the
17-year-old American Virginia
Roberts, who had been brought to
London in 2001 by Epstein.
It was taken in the mews house of
Ghislaine Maxwell. I had a house in
that mews at that time. I never saw
Prince Andrew in the mews but
Maxwell would come and go.
I fear for the Prince because –
whatever else he does in life – thatphotograph will always haunt him.
Outraged denial is not enough and
will only fuel more suspicions
of wrongdoing.
despite last night’s statement that
the Prince was ‘appalled’ by the
allegations, it is not the job of Buck-
ingham Palace’s press office to try
to rebuff the many questions that
legitimately arise. And I say this as
someone who moved into public
relations after I left the BBC.
Prince Andrew must come clean
about his relationship with Epstein,
and admit he made a huge mistake
in continuing their friendship.
That is the PR advice I would give
him. Nothing else will lay this
matter to rest. Quite apart from the
paramount rights of the women who
may have been victims of Epstein,
only the truth will do.
The Queen does not need or
deserve another royal scandal at the
age of 93. But with every new revela-
tion, and deafening silence from
Andrew, the royals are being dragged
further into the mire.FORMER BBC ROYAL
CORRESPONDENTIT’S TIME THE
PRINCE CAME
CLEAN ABOUT
FRIENDSHIP
WITH EPSTEIN
Ghislaine gift to hospital
that treated ‘sex slave’
EPSTEIN’s former partner Ghis-
laine Maxwell donated money
to a hospital where one of his
sex slaves was treated after he
allegedly assaulted her.
She gave $1,000 (£823) to New
York-Presbyterian Hospital
through her private founda-
tion Max Foundation TR.
The 57-year-old set up the
foundation in 1996 and was the
only trustee apart from one of
Epstein’s lawyers.
Her biggest donation to the
hospital came on May 2, 2007.
Six years earlier, Virginia Rob-
erts claims she went to the
hospital aged 17 after Epstein
allegedly assaulted her.
Ironically, Epstein was taken
to the hospital after commit-ting suicide. The foundation’s
records also show that on April
15, 2008, Maxwell also donated
$350 (£288) to Girls Educational
and Mentoring Services,
known as GEMS. The non-profit
organisation seeks to rehabili-
tate girls, aged as young as 12,
who have experienced ‘domes-
tic trafficking’. At the time of
the donation, Epstein was
negotiating a plea deal for
molesting underage girls.
The records come amid alle-
gations by Epstein’s victims
that Miss Maxwell took part in
the sexual assault of girls.
They emerged as the FBI
refocused its investigation on
to Miss Maxwell after Epstein’s
death on August 10.goodbye to visitor
dophile Epstein and
with a young model