I think there is a lot of wrong in this case, but I can't approve of the way some posters want to screw all the evil into a ball and stick it on every person in this debacle, in equal measure of blame.
'The Queen is wrong - the Queen is bad.'
'Andrew is as bad as Epstein.'
You just need to separate out what each individual has actually done.
There is absolutely no feeling that everyone is trying conscientiously to unravel the threads in this knotted up ball of string, to see who did what. Yet that is what judges do: they do scrutinise very carefully degrees of blame.
Nobody is saying Andrew was right if he slept with a teenager. He ought to have exercised a duty of care as a responsible adult who met and reported to the authorities that a vulnerable- seeming young woman - who looks like a teenager - is hanging out with older adults, her legal guardians nowhere in sight. She was vulnerable and appears not to know it. Posing for a photo with him to show her mum seems to underline her vulnerability, for me. She was totally out of her depth, in her skimpy clothes, with all those world-wide older adults. I saw a photo of her in that same little outfit at a party with celebrities. It is tragic, what her young, innocent life was used for.
There is a principle of innocent until proven guilty, and how can we know what exactly went on? I'm not doubting Virginia Roberts' testimony. I'm inclined to take it as truth, based on her presentation. But officially nobody knows what went on between her and Andrew. The interview suggests lack of truthfulness, based on the fact that photo appears genuine. Lying on camera, if he did, is a serious offence. But what can definitely be inferred beyond that?
I don't think Virginia can say what exactly Andrew knew of her situation. I'd imagine that Andrew didn't mix with the general rich clientele who hung out with Epstein. Why on earth would he do that? Royals don't. They don't want to rub shoulders with ordinary rich joi poloi nobodies. They don't want the adverse publicity. And Andrew has a high opinion of himself. I imagine whatever favours he received thanks to Epstein were delivered in a discreet private room in a quiet house, not in the middle of a free-for-all orgy.
I think we are cleaning up sex, or trying to, as a society. Decades ago, teenagers probably did court older men whom they met through work - and nobody, sadly, said that they were vulnerable. People went out to work aged fifteen, after all. I'm always struck by that song Paul McCartney released with The Beatles when he was twenty-one. It goes: ' She was just seventeen, you know what I mean, and the way she looked was way beyond compare'. That song: ' I saw her standing there' would never be a hit today, with it's insidious meaning. But that was 1963. We treat teenagers as youngsters to be protected now - quite rightly.