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Updated January 13th, 2022 at 15:26 IST

Prince Andrew's sexual abuse trial will cause reputation damage to UK's Queen: Experts

Accuser claims that she was coerced into sex with Duke of York at the age of 17 involving at least two associates linked to disgraced financier Epstein

Reported by: Zaini Majeed
Prince Andrew
Image: AP | Image:self
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The Duke of York, Prince Andrew’s trial of the sexual harassment case brought to the court by the woman named  Virginia Giuffre will cause a "massive embarrassment" for UK’s Queen and The Royal family unless the royal settles out of court, experts believe. According to the British and American media’s own analysis, the Palace must “find a way to "de-royal" the Prince in order to escape the ordeal. Earlier yesterday, a Manhattan US judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed UK Prince’s appeal to scrap the case alleging that the survivor had struck a deal with the disgraced convicted financier Jeffrey Epstein, but the latter lost his latest legal battle after federal court judge rejected that plea. 

Prince Andrew's lawyers toil to dismiss lawsuit, but reputation ordeals for Royals look 'inevitable' 

Prince Andrew’s lawyers have since presented several vague arguments and technical explanations about why the lawsuit must be dismissed, but it turns out that Prince Andrew is eventually slated to face a trial. Andrew’s attorneys have earlier noted that Virginia Giuffre, who no longer lives in the US, had missed court summons and that her charges against Prince were “vague” but the judge refused to stop the case, regardless. This implies reputation damage for the Royal family and the British Queen in the months ahead as the trial unfolds. The survivor meanwhile chose not to file cases against other "potential defendants” but for Prince Andrew, the legal troubles as his case is likely to go to trial by jury, according to US legal experts. 

“This is a huge development because it clears probably the biggest legal hurdle Virginia Giuffre and her team had to get her case to a jury,” Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and co-founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers told The Guardian newspaper on Wednesday. 

The 38-year-old accuser claims that she was coerced into sex with the Duke of York at the age of 17 involving at least two associates linked to the disgraced American financier Jeffrey Epstein and his longtime companion, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. The former was found dead at a New York detention centre in 2019 pending trial on the child sex trafficking case under mysterious circumstances. Giuffre first filed a legal complaint against the Prince in 2015 after she turned in legal papers in the court claiming that she was subjected to sexual abuse in Epstein’s New York mansion by UK’s Prince Andrew.

In the court document, the accuser claimed that she was coerced multiple times, including at a private island in the US Virgin Islands, and Maxwell’s London home. She filed the civil suit in the Manhattan federal court and accused the Prince of emotional abuse as well. Andrew’s lawyers, meanwhile, deny the allegations against their defendant, arguing that a 2009 settlement between Giuffre and Epstein shielded him from legal discourse. 

Prince Andrew, 'a liability.. '

According to the legal experts, Prince Andrew is now a major liability for the royal family, and the Queen Elizabeth II. And the palace might consider to just retire him to the Royal Lodge home where he may be asked to lead a life of anonymity, The Guardian reports. But the experts speculate that there may be no process as such to “de-royalling” a Royal family member as was seen in the case of Prince Harry’s case except the departure from the Royal duties. The reputational damage to the Queen is in store despite under a circumstance where Prince Andrew may likely win the case, experts analyse. The reputation damage occurs from the fact that the UK prince had connections with convicted sex criminals. “Whatever the difficulties, the palace may have to find some way to 'de-royal' him – he is for all intents and purposes an ex-royal and faces a lot of sweating in the year to come,” The Guardian quoted David McClure, author of The Queen’s True Worth, as saying. 

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Published January 13th, 2022 at 15:26 IST

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