The London Sunday Times has a great story in tomorrow’s paper that at last explains why Andrew’s statements on his scandals over the years have never acknowledged the pain and suffering of victims of sexual abuse.
He took the mentions out.
A source described as a “friend of the King and Queen” tells the paper that “in all previous statements issued by the Palace since Andrew’s disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019, each time courtiers drafted in references to the victims they were removed” after they went to Andrew for sign-off.
The friend said: “There has long been a sense from the family that the voices of the victims needed to be heard in these pronouncements, because they feature so heavily in this saga and because there is no credible way the Queen (Camilla) and the Duchess of Edinburgh (Sophie) can continue to do the work they do in the areas of sexual abuse if they can’t point to that.”
Sources told the Times that Camilla has read “coverage of Giuffre’s book, Nobody’s Girl.”
The victims were acknowledged in the statement issued Thursday: “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”
I’m also delighted to see that Royah Nikkhah’s sources have confirmed what my sources told me this week: that far from the de-princing of Andrew being Charles’ cunning plan all along, the King very much hoped getting Andrew to renounce his Duke of York title two weeks ago was going to be the end of the story.
A source is cited as saying: “They got it wrong first time. They’ve got it right now.”
Just to be clear, then, the palace was indeed talking nonsense, as my sources said, when it claimed in its briefing document issued to members of the media, that taking away the Duke of York title was always just a first step and that “a longer term resolution to all the aligned issues was always going to take a little longer to enact, due to the complexities of the legal and constitutional position, but the necessity of further action was never in doubt.”
Nikkhah pours scorn on the palace’s claim that Charles “was just biding his time to get his legal and constitutional ducks in a row.”
Intriguingly, she highlights a public heckle at Lichfield Cathedral as being a factor in Charles pushing the button, with a source saying: “What’s changed in two weeks is the King and Queen have been out taking the temperature of the public — they’re doing national surveys at every engagement. They have felt the public anger and they have acted.”
A former courtier is quoted as saying: “Of all members of the royal family, he was the most loathed by the household, so there are not many people sobbing in their cornflakes.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source theroyalist.substack.com ’
