Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is at his first royal event since being stripped of his titles as he attends the christening of his granddaughter Athena.
The former prince has arrived to attend the christening of Princess Beatrice’s daughter in St James’s Palace’s Chapel Royal on Friday morning.
He was spotted entering through a side gate in a green Range Rover in a bid to evade waiting media.
Andrew’s attendance comes after the King officially stripped his disgraced brother of both his HRH style and his prince title because of his “serious lapses of judgment” over his association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
He was also evicted from his residence at Royal Lodge in Windsor after it emerged he had paid just a “peppercorn rent” for decades.
His ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, who also lost her courtesy royal divorcee title and has reverted to her maiden name, is thought to have arrived separately for the christening earlier on Friday.
Athena, the daughter of Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, was born on January 22 and is the couple’s second child.
The private ceremony was also attended by Beatrice’s sister Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank. Also spotted arriving for the service were singer James Blunt and his wife Sofia Wellesley.
The christening appeared to feature just immediate family and no senior Royals were present.
The King’s decision to strip Andrew of his titles came after the posthumous memoir of Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, who repeated allegations that, as a teenager, she was made to have sex with Andrew on three separate occasions.
The Metropolitan Police is also looking into claims made in the memoir that Andrew passed Ms Giuffre’s date of birth and social security number to his taxpayer-funded bodyguard in 2011 and asked him to investigate.
He has strenuously denied the allegations.
Andrew first stepped down from his royal duties in 2019 following a disastrous Newsnight interview in which he denied maintaining a friendship with Epstein. However, the two were pictured together in New York in December 2010, in a meeting Andrew claimed was to break off their friendship.
The publication of Ms Giuffre’s memoir following her death by suicide put fresh pressure on the royal family to cut ties with Andrew.
He has also faced calls to give evidence to a House Oversight Committee in connection with his “long-standing friendship” with Epstein.
The committee on oversight and government reform, which is investigating the late financier’s sex trafficking operations and the US government’s handling of the case, said it had identified “financial records containing notations such as ‘massage for Andrew’ that raise serious questions”.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.independent.co.uk ’
