Prince Andrew’s Epstein entanglement is royal headache that could end monarchy, says expert – Mirror.co.uk

Buckingham Palace still hasn't learned its lesson - Prince Andrew should have been stripped of his HRH title and retired from public life a full decade ago, argues royal author Nigel Cawthorne

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Prince Andrew: Virginia Giuffre brings legal action against Duke

You could almost hear Buckingham Palace groan on Monday.

Finally, after the two-decade-long saga of Prince Andrews entanglement with Jeffrey Epstein, a lawsuit had landed in the New York court.

At 2pm, Virginia Giuffre's lawyers sued Prince Andrew, days before the state's statute of limitations passed.

Landing a punch on prince's reputation, she claimed in her court papers that Andrew forced her to engage in sex acts against her will.

Not only that, her court papers refer to her as a child as she was under the age of 18 at the time, according to the law in the US Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned a private island.

In the long history of the monarchy, this set a black precedent.

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How could Buckingham Palace, an institution with over a millennium of PR experience, let it come this far? Only Bertie, the future Edward VII and Andrews great-great-great grandfather, had ever come close to being cited legally in a sex case, and that was narrowly avoided when he was asked to give evidence in his lover's divorce hearing.

Over two decades, Buckingham Palace has got everything possible wrong. The alarm bells should have first sounded when Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell flew on Epsteins private jet to Edinburgh.

Weeks earlier, the billionaire had been arrested on charges of underage sex activities in June 2006. Nothing happened. Worse still, Epstein was allowed to visit Windsor Castle as Andrew's guest at Princess Beatrices 18th birthday bash on July 19 that year. Ghislaine and Harvey Weinstein were his other invitees.

It was followed by a four-day Christmas visit to Epsteins New York mansion to watch a private release of The Kings Speech shortly after the financier's prison term ended in 2010.

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Andrew has always strenuously denied any wrongdoing, not least in his 2019 Newsnight interview - another clumsy shot in the foot so daft that almost seemed intentional. Courtiers should always have known that royalty and criminals do not mix.

Now, with a second victim poised to sue the prince before the August 13 deadline, the pigeons have come home to roost. The optics are now even worse.

This is hardly the end of the legal headache the prince is causing for the palace - rather it's likely to be the beginning of a long and extended chapter. Andrew is already an official part of the Epstein FBI investigation. Both then-president Trump and his Attorney General Barr endorsed a request to the UK for legal assistance in interviewing the prince.

This piece of legal equipment is usually reserved for terrorists and drug smugglers. To apply it to a royal is a first even in the USA since its War of Independence against Great Britain.

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The pressure on Boris Johnson's government to yield is mounting. Should the prince refuse to cooperate, he will never be able to enter the USA again without risking arrest as a material witness.

In a move that must be deeply worrying to the Palace, the Met Police is reviewing its previous decision not to investigate whether Epstein committed crimes in London, with Commissioner Cressida Dick stating yesterday "no-one is above the law".

In 2015, Virginia Giuffre lodged a formal complaint of being sex-trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to London for Andrew's sexual gratification. Maxwell still owned the property and police were going to forensically exam it. Giuffre recalled, however, "the next thing I hear, just like the FBI, they were not allowed to pursue the investigation".

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That is likely to change as the lawsuit progresses through the courts.

Even now, the Palace has not learned its lesson. Prince Andrew is still a senior royal with his HRH title intact. One way of dialling down the heat would have been for the prince to retire completely from all royal duties and to hand back his title.

The palace should have done so already in 2011 when the Prince lost his unpaid position as Britains Trade Envoy. Instead, courtiers gave him a frontline position alongside Prince Charles.

The Habsburgs never forgot and never learned. The Windsors seem not far off.

*Nigel Cawthorne is the author of Prince Andrew: Epstein, Maxwell And The Palace

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Prince Andrew's Epstein entanglement is royal headache that could end monarchy, says expert - Mirror.co.uk