London (AFP) – The removal of Prince Andrew’s royal title following further revelations about his ties to US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein “vindicates” his alleged sexual assault victim, her family has said. Andrew, 65, on Friday renounced his Duke of York title under pressure from his brother King Charles III, who wants to draw a line under the scandal that has embarrassed Britain’s royal family.
Speaking to the BBC, the brother of Virginia Giuffre, whom Andrew denies assaulting when she was 17, said his late sister “would be very proud” of the development. “We have shed a lot of happy and sad tears today,” he told the broadcaster late on Friday. “I think happy because in a lot of ways this vindicates Virginia. All the years of work that she put in is now coming to some sort of justice,” he added.
Andrew, who stepped back from public life in 2019 amid the Epstein scandal, will remain a prince, as he is the second son of the late queen Elizabeth II. He has become a source of deep embarrassment for his brother Charles, following a 2019 television interview in which he defended his friendship with Epstein. In the interview, Andrew vowed he had cut ties in 2010 with Epstein, who was disgraced after Giuffre accused him of using her as a sex slave.
But in a reported exchange that emerged in UK media this week, Andrew told the convicted sex offender in 2011 that they were “in this together” when a photo of the prince with his arm around Giuffre was published. He added the two would “play together soon.” Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking underage girls for sex.
Giuffre, a US and Australian citizen, took her own life at her farm in Western Australia on April 25. New allegations emerged this week in her posthumous memoir in which she wrote that Andrew had behaved as if having sex with her was his “birthright.” In “Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice,” to be published next week, Giuffre wrote she had sex with Andrew on three separate occasions, including when she was under 18.
Andrew has repeatedly denied Giuffre’s accusations and avoided a trial in a civil lawsuit by paying a multimillion-dollar settlement. The once-popular royal, who was hailed a hero when he flew as a Royal Navy helicopter pilot during the 1982 Falklands War, was stripped of his military titles in 2022.
© 2024 AFP
