Move follows BBC interview about association with sex offender Jeffery Epstein
Prince Andrew is to withdraw from scores of charities in a move that appeared designed to protect the monarchy from further humiliation over his association with Jeffrey Epstein.
Buckingham Palace confirmed on Sunday that the Duke of York was “standing back from all his patronages” but indicated he still hoped to return to a public role at some point by saying the move was only temporary.
Continue reading...Future historians may conclude that Prince Andrew’s defining achievement was to gift the nation a new verb.
Following a tumultuous week when his car-crash interview shook the House of Windsor so vigorously it seemed its palaces were in danger of losing their crenellations, the Duke of York now finds himself banished from duties. His fate is the 21st-century equivalent of that which befell the difficult minor royals of previous eras who were locked up in asylums, away from the public gaze.
Continue reading...The Victims’ Commissioner is demanding that the Metropolitan Police explain its decision not to pursue a full investigation into claims a teenager was trafficked to the UK to have sex with Prince Andrew.
The Observer understands that Dame Vera Baird QC, a former solicitor general and chair of the Board of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, has taken a close interest in the allegations, first examined by Scotland Yard in 2015.
Continue reading...Amanda Thirsk will run mentoring initiative, as Barclays becomes latest organisation to sever ties with the prince
Barclays has become the latest among a growing number of organisations to sever ties with Prince Andrew, as it emerged that the aide who orchestrated the beleaguered royal’s disastrous interview about his links to convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is no longer his private secretary.
Amanda Thirsk, who was said to have played a key role in persuading him to agree to the BBC interview, has reportedly moved on to run his business mentoring initiative, Pitch@Palace.
Continue reading...Royal pressed to turn over all relevant documents about contacts with financier
Lawyers representing the victims of the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have signalled they are willing to serve a subpoena to Prince Andrew to ensure he cooperates with their investigations.
In a statement on Wednesday announcing he was standing down from public duties, the Duke of York said he was willing to help “any appropriate law enforcement agency” with their investigations after what he accepted was his “ill-judged association” with Epstein.
Continue reading...Duke of York issues statement amid criticism over relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
The Queen has given permission for Prince Andrew to “step back from public duties for the foreseeable future” after days of mounting pressure following his unrepentant interview with the BBC about his friendship with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Duke of York also said he was “willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations if required” over the US probe into Epstein.
Continue reading...The announcement by Bond University and RMIT follows the royal’s interview about his links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein
Two Australian universities have severed ties with a business mentoring charity founded by Prince Andrew after the royal’s train-wreck interview about his links to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The Pitch@Palace program – founded by the prince in 2014 – supports entrepreneurs and start-up companies and gives them the opportunity to pitch their idea to business leaders at places including Buckingham Palace.
Continue reading...Two New York correctional officers responsible for guarding Jeffrey Epstein the night he killed himself have been charged in connection with his death, it was reported on Tuesday.
Related: New Epstein accuser sues estate and calls on Prince Andrew to share information
Continue reading...Lib Dem leader and Labour MP condemn royal’s BBC interview, while PM stays quiet
Jo Swinson has led criticism from political leaders over Prince Andrew’s “disheartening” remarks about his friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Liberal Democrat leader condemned his use of language about sex and failure to put the late financier’s victims at the centre of his BBC interview.
Continue reading...Accountancy firm not renewing sponsorship, it emerges, after much-criticised TV interview
The accountancy giant KPMG is not renewing its sponsorship of Prince Andrew’s entrepreneurial scheme Pitch@Palace, it has emerged, in the wake of his much-derided interview in which he defended his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
The Duke of York has been heavily criticised as having shown neither contrition nor sympathy for Epstein’s child victims in the BBC Newsnight interview and his suitability as patron to scores of charities and organisations has been called into question as a result.
Continue reading...What was most striking about the Duke of York’s interview with Emily Maitlis? It was a toss-up: his views on sex (it’s a “positive act” for a man, apparently; and if you can’t remember it, ergo it didn’t happen) set off a logical cascade into the abyss (if, by extension, it’s a negative act for women, does that mean we don’t “decide” to do it? In which case, are we always, basically, waiting for it to be done?). His line about adrenaline – that he overdosed on it during the Falklands war, and can therefore no longer sweat – has triggered a race between medics and picture editors to see who can disprove him fastest. His use of the Pizza Express in Woking as an alibi circa 2001 has generated a lot of mirth (check out online reviews since Sunday night). But surely the slam-dunk astonishment lay in what he didn’t say: that he was sorry for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein; or indeed, that he had given them any thought at all.
“There was always something tragicomic to Prince Andrew’s trajectory,” says Catherine Mayer, the author of The Royal Family: Britain’s Resilient Monarchy, and the leader of the Women’s Equality party. “Or at least it was tragicomic until we found out about his association with Epstein, and then the comedy drained away.” The “playboy prince”, they called him in the 1990s, after his divorce from Sarah Ferguson; before the marriage, pretty much from the age of 18, he was known as Randy Andy, or as the Daily Mail put it, “Randy Andy and His Web of Armcandy”.
Continue reading...Lawyers for Epstein’s victims say they were ‘almost completely ignored’ in interview
Prince Andrew is facing a transatlantic backlash over his extraordinary defence of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein after lawyers who represent 10 of the billionaire predator’s victims branded the royal unrepentant and implausible and demanded that he speak to the FBI.
After the royal’s defiant Newsnight interview on Saturday triggered a disbelieving reaction from the public and the media, the prince was under growing pressure from critics in the UK and US on Sunday who demanded an apology for his conduct and said that his defence of his actions was simply not credible.
Continue reading...If, as many royal observers have claimed, the Duke of York’s decision to submit himself to an Emily Maitlis grilling represented a colossal gamble by a man desperate to make the relentless flow of negative headlines dry up, then it appears he has bet the house on red only for it to come up black.
Prince Andrew’s bizarre defence that he chose to stay at convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s home because it was “convenient” and that it was the “honourable” thing to do has gone down badly in the court of public opinion.
Continue reading...Duke of York claims alibi in interview with Emily Maitlis for Newsnight about Jeffrey Epstein links
The Duke of York claimed on Saturday night that he could not have had sex with a teenage girl in the London home of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell because he was at home after attending a children’s party at Pizza Express in Woking.
Prince Andrew gave the startling explanation in a bombshell interview with Emily Maitlis for BBC’s Newsnight in which he was grilled about his relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who has been exposed as a paedophile.
Continue reading...Prince speaks publicly for first time about paedophile financier found dead in prison
Prince Andrew has said that he failed to uphold the standards of the royal family when he visited Jeffrey Epstein after the paedophile’s release from prison, admitting: “I let the side down, simple as that.”
The prince made the statement in an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight programme, the first time he has spoken publicly about his friendship with Epstein, to be broadcast on Saturday night.
Continue reading...Epstein’s estate is facing multiple lawsuits from women who say he sexually abused them
The executors of the estate of Jeffrey Epstein said on Thursday they had asked a judge to approve the creation of a proposed fund to compensate women the financier was accused of having sexually abused.
The executors, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, said in a statement that the fund would create a “voluntary, confidential, non-adversarial alternative to litigation”.
Continue reading...Inquiry opened last month after US police found links to sex-trafficking claims in France
Police have searched the Paris apartment of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as part of a French investigation into trafficking claims against the disgraced US financier.
Investigators arrived at Epstein’s luxury 800 sq metre apartment on the exclusive Avenue Foch near the Arc de Triomphe on Monday afternoon and worked through the night to search the premises.
Continue reading...Virginia Giuffre claims prince was participant in disgraced financier’s exploitation of her
An accuser of Jeffrey Epstein has alleged Prince Andrew was “an abuser, a participant” in the disgraced US financier’s exploitation of her as a teenager, in her first television interview.
Virginia Giuffre, formerly Roberts, who was pictured with Prince Andrew in a now notorious photograph, spoke to the US network TV station NBC News about her involvement with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who killed himself in a New York jail in August while facing fresh child sex trafficking charges.
Continue reading...The computer scientist Richard Stallman has resigned from MIT and the Free Software Foundation (FSF), which he founded and led, after leaked emails appeared to show him downplaying another academic’s alleged participation in the purported sex trafficking of minors by Jeffrey Epstein.
Related: How MIT was complicit in allowing Jeffrey Epstein to launder his reputation | John Naughton
Continue reading...Signe Swenson exposed the story of powerful men and millions of dollars in donations to the school’s Media Lab
“I felt like my job was to protect secrets,” says Signe Swenson, who last week emerged as key witness in the relationship between disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab and its former head Joi Ito.
Ito resigned last week after a picture emerged of institutional efforts to accept and cover up substantial philanthropic donations from Epstein that threaten to devastate the reputation of the famed technology-research centre.
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