Britain’s Andrew Mountbatten Windsor will be stripped of his last remaining military position as part of King Charles’s decision to remove his brother from public life, according to the United Kingdom’s defence minister.
John Healey told the BBC on Sunday, local time, that moves were underway to take away the former British prince’s position as a vice-admiral in the country’s navy and that Charles had “indicated that’s what he wishes”.
The king last week stripped his younger brother of his title of prince and evicted him from his mansion in a bid to prevent further damage to the royal family’s reputation over Andrew’s ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
King Charles III and Buckingham Palace confirmed in a fiercely-worded statement Andrew would lose his royal title over his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. (AP: Joanna Chan)
“We’ve seen Andrew surrender the honorary positions he’s had throughout the military,” Mr Healey said.
“Guided again by the king, we are working now to remove that last remaining title of vice-admiral that he has.”
“This is a move that’s right, it’s a move the king has indicated we should take, and we’re working on that at the moment.”
He told the Laura Kuenssberg programme that the government would also be guided by the king on whether Andrew should lose his military medals.
The former prince was once feted for his role as a Royal Navy helicopter pilot in the 1982 Falklands War. He retired in 2001 after 22 years of service.
Andrew was stripped of his honorary military titles by his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, in 2022 after he was sued by Virginia Giuffre — Epstein’s main accuser — but kept his rank as a vice-admiral.
Mr Mountbatten Windsor has always denied that he sexually abused Ms Giuffre, who said in her posthumous memoir published last month that she was trafficked to have sex with him on three occasions, twice when she was just 17.
On Thursday, Buckingham Palace said in a fiercely-worded statement that “Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor” adding “these censures are deemed necessary” despite his denial.
The king and queen also said their “utmost sympathies had been, and would remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse”.
A friend of the king and Queen Camilla told the Sunday Times: “That was extraordinary. That’s the closest you’ll get to the king and his court passing judgment on his brother.”
British media reported earlier that Andrew had refused to sign off on any statements that referenced the victims since his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview in 2019 in which he defended his ties to Epstein and showed no empathy for the women involved.
“There has long been a sense from the family that the voices of the victims needed to be heard,” another friend told the Sunday Times.
Camilla has long campaigned for the victims of abuse, and there were growing fears among the royal family of the reputational damage of the scandal.
In an email released among court documents on Thursday in the US, Andrew wrote to Epstein in 2010 after his release from jail for prostituting minors that he was planning a trip to New York as it would be “good to catch up in person”.
Reuters/AFP
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.abc.net.au ’
