The Royal Family have expressed concerns over how Prince Andrew has has handled allegations of sex abuse, according to reports.
Both Prince Charles and his son William have reportedly shared doubts over the Duke of York’s failure to respond to a US lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre this week.
Andrew is reportedly locked in crisis talks with his mother, the Queen, after arriving at the private Scottish retreat of Balmoral Castle on Wednesday.
Ms Giuffre’s lawyers filed the civil suit seeking unspecified damages at a federal court in New York.
The court documents claim she was “lent out for sexual purposes” by convicted sex offender Epstein including while she was still a minor under US law.
Andrew is named as the only defendant in the 15-page suit, brought under New York state’s Child Victims Act, though Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell are mentioned frequently throughout.
Ms Giuffre’s lawsuit stated: “In this country no person, whether president or prince, is above the law, and no person, no matter how powerless or vulnerable, can be deprived of the law’s protection.
“Twenty years ago Prince Andrew’s wealth, power, position, and connections enabled him to abuse a frightened, vulnerable child with no one there to protect her. It is long past the time for him to be held to account.”
The allegations say she was sexually abused by Andrew when she was 17 and that he knew she was the teenage victim of sex trafficking.
Andrew has vehemently denied the allegations in the past, and a spokesman for the duke said there was “no comment” when she was asked to respond to Ms Giuffre’s legal action.
Prince Charles and Prince William have doubts
The Mail reports that both Charles and Prince William have expressed concern over the way the allegations have been handled by Andrew.
A royal insider told the newspaper: "The family find themselves in an extraordinarily difficult and sensitive situation given the nature of the allegations.
"They are limited in what they can say publicly and now that the Duke of York is no longer a working royal they are actually rather limited in what control they can exert over the situation privately."
The Times reports how Charles can see no way back into public life for his brother following the allegations.
A source told the newspaper: "This will be unwelcome reputational damage to the institution.
"He [Charles] has long ago concluded that it is probably an unsolvable problem."
‘No memory’
In his Newsnight interview with the BBC’s Emily Maitlis, Andrew denied claims that he slept with Ms Giuffre on three separate occasions, saying: “I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened. I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever.”
The duke also said he has no memory of a well-known photograph of him with his arm around Ms Giuffre’s waist at Maxwell’s house, and has questioned whether it was his own hand in the image.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article