The Guardian Weekly (2022-01-14)

The Guardian Weekly 14 January 2022

22 Spotlight

Europe

UNITED KINGDOM

‘The f irm’

awaits grim

fallout from

Andrew’s

disgrace

Whether he wins a critical

court ruling or not, the prince

has damaged the royal family

• and it will have to change

P

rince Andrew , the Duke of

York, KG, GCVO, CD, ADC ,

turns 62 next month. It is

long past the age when a man

should cease being a cause of concern

and embarrassment to his parents. Yet

Andrew, said to be the Elizabeth II’s

favourite child, has exposed his mother

to the greatest threat to the royal fam-

ily’s reputation in living memory.

As he await ed the decision this week

of a New York judge, Lewis Kaplan ,

in the sex assault case brought by

Virginia Giuff re, the prince was in the

deeply unedifying position of trying

to evade court with a secret silencing

deal struck by his late friend and con-

victed sex off ender, Jeff rey Epstein.

The agreement, signed in 2009,

stated that in exchange for being

paid $500,000, Giuff re, then using

her maiden name of Roberts, would

“release ... and forever discharge ...

second parties and any other person or

entity who could have been included

as a potential defendant ... from all,

and all manner of, action and actions

of Virginia Roberts, including state or

federal, cause and causes of action”.

Giuffre maintains that, in 2001

when she was 17, she was traffi cked

by Epstein and his sometime girlfriend

Ghislaine Maxwell to have sex with

the prince on three occasions – once in

Maxwell’s house in Belgravia, London,

where the infamous photograph was

taken of her with the prince’s hand

around her waist, on the second occa-

sion at Epstein’s mansion in New York

and fi nally on Epstein’s private island,

Little St James in the US Virgin Islands ,

with other girls. The prince denie d all

allegations and sa id he has no recollec-

tion of ever having met Giuff re.

The prince’s lawyers fi rst argued

that the court summons had not been

properly served, then attempted to get

the case thrown out on the grounds

that Giuff re does n ot live in the US.

Then they sought their client’s salva-

tion with the grim fact that he qualifi es

as a potential defendant in any sex

abuse case connected to Epstein. In

other words, it appears his possible

‘The whole

story is

a genuine

tragedy ...

but there

is also a

soap opera

quality to it’

Catherine

Mayer

Journalist

By Andrew Anthony

Prince Andrew

and Virginia

Roberts, aged

17, at Ghislaine

Maxwell’s

townhouse in

London, 2001

In a TV interview,

the prince tried

to use Maxwell,

right, to distance

himself from

Epstein , left