This is the end for Prince Andrew – and what remaining life he has left as an official Royal will be haunted by those five words he wrote to Jeffrey Epstein: ‘We are in this together.’
Not only was it a repugnant show of solidarity for a convicted paedophile, but it is the first incontrovertible proof that the Duke of York lied to Emily Maitlis during his disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview.
Of course, everyone watching could smell his dishonesty a mile off, not least his insistence that it was ‘right’ and ‘honourable’ of him to visit New York in person – and stay in Epstein’s 40-room mansion – to break off his friendship with the disgraced financier.
And now we know that, 12 weeks after they were pictured together in Central Park, he was emailing him as if no break in relations had ever happened.
He also told Maitlis that he had ‘no recollection’ of ever meeting Virginia Giuffre, nor did he remember the photograph of the two of them being taken, even implying that it had been doctored when he said: ‘We can’t be certain as to whether or not that’s my hand on her.’
Yet, in his message to Epstein, which followed this paper’s publication of the photo, he did not say ‘Who’s this ‘Virginia Giuffre’ everyone is talking about?’
He knew perfectly well that she was one of the underage girls used by Epstein to lure his friends into positions of compromise.
He knew he’d had inappropriate – and, in the US at least, illegal – relations with her.
The leaked email provides definitive proof the Duke lied in his interview with BBC’s Newsnight when he claimed he ‘never had any contact’ with Epstein after the pair were pictured walking together in New York’s Central Park in December 2010
In his disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019, Andrew also suggested the picture with Ms Giuffre was a crude forgery – but a 2023 investigation by this newspaper provided incontrovertible proof the photograph is genuine
The MoS has verified the email address used by Andrew, while Epstein’s email address has repeatedly appeared in court documents. Prince Andrew declined to comment
Perhaps it was just such relations he was referring to when he promised Epstein: ‘We’ll play some more soon!’
To my mind ‘play’, to these predatory, middle-aged lechers means ‘we will continue to exploit underage girls’.
We all know what psychological damage this does to people when they are trafficked or forced into unwanted sex.
Virginia’s suicide was not an accident and Andrew must accept his role in her death.
So now, the questions that the Palace, and the King, have long tried to avoid are growing louder with each leaked email.
When will they actually send Andrew packing? When will the King, who is his brother’s landlord, say that he and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson simply cannot go on living in Royal Lodge, a 30-room mansion in Windsor Great Park? That they cannot attend royal funerals?
That they are not to be lined up with the Royals for church services, Garter ceremonies or anything else? That they are out, completely out?
But royal exile for the Duke could invite even greater problems for the King. The fear is that, untethered from royal protocol, Andrew will become the loosest of loose cannons and his broadsides will splinter the entire Monarchy.
The King and the Prince of Wales cannot be seen to support or underwrite Andrew any more. His very existence as an official Royal is a scandal. PIctured (l-r): Prince Andrew, King Charles, Prince William, Catherine Duchess of Cambridge
It is a major crisis for the Monarchy, perhaps the gravest since the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936. Pictured: King Charles with Prince Andrew at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral last month
For a start, he would need to find an income to fund his lavish lifestyle. Fergie, who has enlisted the help of many a poorly-paid ghostwriter to pen her ludicrously bad children’s books, will no doubt advise Andrew to sign a book deal.
Any publisher would lick their lips at the vault of Windsor secrets he could open, and pay handsomely for it.
But they would backpedal fast if Andrew continued to deny any involvement with the Epstein crowd.
The only book deal that would be credible is one in which he reveals as much about himself as he does his family, think: Confessions Of A Sex Addict Prince. The Palace must hope that he would not agree to such a memoir as it would be tantamount to admitting criminal offences.
However many millions he was offered to write it, he and Fergie would get through the money in next to no time.
So the pair would have to beg for handouts from monied friends, be they paedophile financiers, oligarchs from the ex-Soviet ‘stans or Chinese spies.
So this is a real problem, and not only for the immediate family. It is a major crisis for the Monarchy, perhaps the gravest since the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936.
The King and the Prince of Wales cannot be seen to support or underwrite Andrew any more. His very existence as an official Royal is a scandal.
So they must cast him out, for if they show him mercy, they are themselves implicated, and we are only a hair’s breadth away from a republic.
