The family of Virginia Giuffre have demanded Andrew has his ‘prince’ title removed amid growing calls for him to be kicked out of his lavish grace and favour mansion after relinquishing all of his royal titles.
After yet another week of scandal, Andrew this week announced he would no longer be known as the Duke of York and was stepping down from membership of the Order of the Garter – the country’s most ancient order of chivalry.
His ex-wife, Sarah, Duchess of York, with whom he continues to live with at the 30-bedroom Royal Lodge at Windsor, will also now only been known as Sarah Ferguson.
The former husband and wife have repeatedly been plunged into a series of humiliating scandals over their links to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew will also relinquish his position as Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victoria Order but he will remain a prince, having been born the son of Queen Elizabeth.
Last night, the brother of the late Ms Giuffre – who claimed she had sex with Andrew in London when she was 17 – called on King Charles to go one step further and strip him of his ‘prince’ title.
Sky Roberts told BBC Newsnight that his sister would have been ‘very proud’ of the latest development, but that he would like the King to go ‘take out the prince in the Andrew’.
‘I think anybody that was implicated… should have some sort of responsibility and accountability for these survivors,’ he said.
It comes as the Mail on Sunday revealed today how Andrew told the Met Police to dig up dirt on Ms Giuffre by handing over her confidential social security number, how Epstein bankrolled Fergie for 15 years and how he introduced Andrew to a second woman who had been sexually abused by the paedophile financier for years.
Virginia Giuffre photographed with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in London in 2001
Calls are growing for Prince Andrew to be kicked out of Royal Lodge (pictured), his lavish Windsor mansion
Ms Giuffre filed a lawsuit against Andrew in August 2021, seeking unspecified damages for battery, including rape, and the infliction of emotional distress.
She alleged that she was forced to have sex with him three times when she was just 17 years old under the orders of Epstein.
The case was settled outside of court on February 15 2022, for a reported £12million, with £2million thought to have been donated to her sex trafficking charity.
Andrew did not admit wrongdoing and has consistently and vehemently denied the claims.
Backing Ms Giuffre’s family’s calls for Andrew to leave Royal Lodge, royal author Ingrid Seward said: ‘People are furious. He might not be a Duke any more, but he still lives like a Prince.
She added to The Sun: ‘How can he possibly continue to live on the Windsor Park estate in a 30-room mansion?
‘The time has come for the King to tell Andrew to pack up and tell him: ‘I’m sorry, take the money you’ve put into Royal Lodge and start a new life elsewhere.’
Royal author Andrew Lownie told The Times that Andrew could voluntarily vacate Royal Lodge but that he is likely to stay there ‘as long as he can afford to’. Mr Lownie said Andrew pays a peppercorn rent and has spent up to £10million restoring the mansion.
‘Besides, Royal Lodge is the last status symbol for a man who has little sense of his own identity beyond once being second in line to the throne,’ he added.
The former duke has a ‘cast-iron’ tenancy agreement until 2078 but there are growing calls for King Charles to kick him out.
After another humiliating week for the House of York, it’s understood Andrew cancelled an extravagant birthday party for Fergie at Royal Lodge last Wednesday as the Epstein scandal engulfed the pair yet again.
Last night, it also emerged that Andrew insisted Ms Giuffre sign a gagging order so he did not embarrass Queen Elizabeth during her Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
The bombshell claim is set to be revealed in Ms Giuffre’s tell-all memoir from beyond the grave, which will be published on Tuesday.
She writes: ‘I agreed to a one-year gag order, which seemed important to the Prince because it ensured that his mother’s Platinum Jubilee would not be tarnished any more than it already had been.’
The agreement meant Ms Giuffre was barred from discussing her abuse at the hands of Epstein during the 70th year of the late Queen’s reign.
Ms Giuffre’s brother Sky said he had ‘shed a lot of happy and sad tears’ after Andrew announced he would give up his royal titles, but that ‘he shouldn’t be able to call himself a prince’.
The Mail on Sunday has revealed today how Andrew embroiled the Metropolitan Police and one of Queen Elizabeth’s most senior aides in a campaign to smear Ms Giuffre.
A bombshell email obtained by this newspaper exposes how Andrew asked his taxpayer-funded Met bodyguard to investigate Ms Giuffre and passed him her date of birth and confidential social security number.
Astonishingly, Andrew then told Ed Perkins, Queen Elizabeth’s deputy press secretary, that he had asked one of his personal protection officers – part of the Met’s elite SO14 Royal Protection Group – to dig up information about Ms Giuffre.
He emailed Mr Perkins hours before this newspaper first published the infamous picture of the duke with 17-year-old Ms Giuffre, which would ultimately bring about his downfall.
Prince Andrew, King Charles III and Prince William attend the Funeral of the Duchess of Kent at Westminster Cathedral on September 16
Prince Andrew’s statement released by Buckingham Palace yesterday announcing his relinquishing of his titles
Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson in June 2016 at Royal Ascot. Sarah Ferguson (pictured right) will also be banned from royal events when William is king
‘It would also seem she has a criminal record in the [United] States,’ he wrote. ‘I have given her DoB [date of birth] and social security number for investigation with XXX, the on duty ppo [personal protection officer].’
It is not suggested that the officer complied with the prince’s request, while Ms Giuffre’s family last night said she did not have a criminal record.
Her relatives said our revelations ‘expose the lengths to which those implicated try to discredit and defame survivors. The truth will surface and there will be no shadows in which they can hide.’
A spokesperson for the Met told the MoS late on Saturday that they were ‘actively looking into the claims made.’
Ed Miliband described this newspaper’s revelations as ‘deeply concerning’.
The Energy Secretary was asked about the reports in The Mail On Sunday as he appeared on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg.
The Energy Secretary told BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg.: ‘These are deeply concerning allegations. I think people want to look at those allegations and what the substance is behind them.
‘But if that is correct, that is absolutely not the way that close protection officers should be used.’
Asked if he would support legislation to strip Andrew of his titles, the minister insisted the Government would be guided by the Royals.
He added: ‘I think the royal family have said that they didn’t want to take up parliamentary time with this. There are lots of other things that Parliament is discussing.’
The MoS has also revealed how Epstein introduced Andrew to a second woman who had been sexually abused by the billionaire for years.
The woman, who the MoS has chosen not to name as she is a victim of sexual abuse, was introduced to Andrew by Epstein via email on August 11, 2010 and may have met the prince in London later that month.
Andrew has so far been linked with only one Epstein victim, the late Ms Giuffre. Andrew has always vehemently denied her claims.
We can reveal the woman, a blue-eyed blonde, was ‘not only abused by Epstein but trafficked by him for many years’, according to her legal representative. The woman ‘has suffered a great deal of harm as a consequence’ of the horrific sexual abuse she was forced to endure, her lawyer added.
In an email sent on August 11, 2010 Epstein wrote: ‘I have a friend who I think you might enjoy having dinner with. Her name is XXXXX (redacted). She will be in London 20-24.’
Andrew responded: ‘Of course. I am in Geneva until the morning of 22nd but would be delighted to see her. Will she be bringing a message from you? Please give her my contact details to get in touch.’
He signed off ‘A’ followed by HRH The Duke of York KG, standing for Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter, the titles he has now lost.
Epstein replied by sending the woman’s email and copying her into a message sent to Andrew.
The woman’s legal representative declined to answer questions about what happened between her and Prince Andrew yet did respond to a question about another wealthy man the woman has been linked with.
When asked if she was the same person referred to in emails relating to that man and his association with Epstein, her lawyer told the MoS: ‘She is the XXXXX (redacted) being discussed in the email… but she did not ever meet [the wealthy man] and was not abused by him.’
When asked directly if the woman ever met Prince Andrew or was ever abused by him the MoS was greeted with stony silence. A legal source familiar with the case said: ‘You can interpret that silence how you will. It does seem strange that her lawyer would absolve the other man yet not comment on the Andrew matter.
‘Of course, that does not mean Andrew is guilty of anything but it does raise more questions about his conduct. He needs to come clean about this second woman.’
The MoS also revealed today how Epstein secretly bankrolled Fergie for 15 years, according to astonishing new emails.
The convicted paedophile complained to friends about the disgraced duchess’s scrounging ways in messages that suggest his financial support went far beyond the £15,000 she admitted taking from him.
In the previously unseen emails, Epstein reveals Fergie was so desperate to cosy up to him that ‘she was the first to celebrate’ his release from jail ‘with her two daughters in tow’. Princess Beatrice would have been 20 at the time and Eugenie 19, the same age as many of his victims.
The shocking claims are contained in a huge tranche of documents under review by the US Congress. They are set to be released once they have been redacted to protect the identity of hundreds of young girls Epstein raped and sexually abused.
The sordid nature of Fergie’s relationship with the paedophile and the chummy tone of their correspondence makes sickening reading that will repulse the sex offender’s many victims.
Details of the shocking email come after Andrew was forced to relinquish all of his remaining titles following new damaging revelations in last week’s MoS about his friendship with Epstein.
It is also reported by the Times that Prince William is set to take a tougher approach with Andrew by banning his disgraced uncle from all future royal events – including his Coronation when he ascends to the throne.
Although the Prince of Wales, 43, is said to have been ‘consulted’ on the decision to strip the Duke of York of his titles, he was not satisfied with the outcome and is well aware that the ‘Andrew problem’ will become his own in the future.
After years of Andrew being embroiled in humiliating scandals, William is planning to be a more ruthless monarch by banning his uncle from all aspects of royal life, including public and private events and most state occasions.
This will also extend to Sarah Ferguson – who had her Duchess of York title removed yesterday – who will also be banned from royal events after it was revealed last month that she had subsequently sent an email to Epstein apologising for publicly denouncing him and instead calling him her ‘supreme friend’.
William is also apparently concerned about the message that Andrew’s attendance at royal events gives to sexual abuse victims.
In a memoir to be published this week, Ms Giuffre, who was abused by Epstein for four years, claimed that Andrew ‘believed having sex with me was his birthright’.
Andrew’s email to Mr Perkins is one of a series of explosive disclosures contained within a cache of emails currently with the US Congress that have been obtained exclusively by the MoS. The ‘Epstein files’ also reveal:
Ms Giuffre’s family said: ‘These outrageous emails are further vindication of Virginia. It underscores her courage and her strength as a truth teller.’
Last weekend, the MoS exclusively revealed that Andrew had publicly lied when he claimed he never had contact with Epstein again following a ‘final’ meeting with him in December 2010.
It obtained emails sent 12 weeks after that meeting in which Andrew contacted the sex offender to reassure him, the day after a picture of the prince with Ms Giuffre was published, that ‘we are in this together’ and would have to ‘rise above it’.
Sickeningly, Andrew concluded: ‘Otherwise keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon!!!’ It was signed ‘A, HRH The Duke of York, KG’, as a knight of the Order of the Garter.
It was also revealed that Andrew met, on at least three occasions, the alleged Chinese spymaster at the centre of the current Whitehall espionage case.
Sources have told the Daily Mail that things came to a head this week after a ‘constant drip, drip’ of fresh claims, of which the MoS’s email revelations proved the ‘most significant issue’.
The changes will take effect immediately and were decided upon in recognition of the fact that the prince’s personal issues continued to be an ‘unwelcome distraction’ from the work of the wider Royal Family.
However, the King has acknowledged that he cannot legally force Andrew out of his Royal Lodge home and he will continue to remain there so long as he can afford the rent.
The prince has a 100-year-plus private tenancy agreement with the Crown Estate which is said to be ‘unaffected’ by issues relating to his honours and titles.
The prince’s titles, rather than being stripped from him, are ‘in abeyance’ – they effectively remain ‘extant but inactive’.
It is understood that part of the King’s thinking was to prevent a waste of parliamentary time formally taking the titles away. Any move to do so would have required an Act of Parliament.
But His Majesty was also very keen to ‘protect’ Andrew’s daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who remain Her Royal Highnesses as granddaughters of Queen Elizabeth.
If their father’s titles had been removed, theirs would have been affected too, and Charles was keen to avoid this as he holds them ‘in high regard and affection’.
‘He wouldn’t have wanted to sign off on anything that would impact them,’ a source said.
Andrew remains a prince because he is the son of Queen Elizabeth II, according to Letters Patent – a written expression of wishes by a monarch – issued in 1917 by George V, updated by Queen Elizabeth in 2012.
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