Prince Andrew no surprise

[Pixxie7]

No surprise that the met have stopped. Their investigation into PA.

DiverseOpinions: this is why nobody can have a serious discussion about the Royals on here, because posters will come on and say something ridiculous that's been proved wrong 250 posts ago. PA actively courted the "rich hoi polloi". Nygard, Banque Havilland, the ME autocrats. Etc.

A “he said, she said” jury trial in a foreign jurisdiction with a political judge, and linked to a notorious criminal who died and so could be considered to have escaped justice - I’d consider that a hugely risky proposition for any client, even one who was 100% innocent.

Running away, doing a Bill Clinton "Didn't have sex with her" and then having the court find against him is just as risky.

His lawyers have probably never seen an ego that big and didn't know how to handle it. No point trying to treat this as a normal client because he's been allowed privileges, FoI etc that other clients wouldn't have had.

He can't win, either way. Liars always get found out in the end, and the rest of the world has already made its mind up.

PA is just a meme who's only ever going to be remembered for VG and for not being able to sweat.

He's thrown his whole family under a bus to save his own reputation, which was dire even before all this.

Now everyone's understandably looking very closely at what the rest of the RF have been doing.

I haven't read all the thread - just the beginning and end, so apologies if this has already been said, but as a man who had two daughters, I wonder what Prince Andrew would have said to either of them if he found out they were sleeping with a man of 40 at the age of 17. I don't imagine he would have thought it OK. So why did he think it OK for himself?

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'.

Yes, but Paul McCartney was 21 so still a young man himself - if he'd been 41 as people have said he'd have been seen as a dirty old man.

His lawyers have probably never seen an ego that big and didn't know how to handle it. No point trying to treat this as a normal client because he's been allowed privileges, FoI etc that other clients wouldn't have had

It’s actually not great that this is the case, but trust me, white collar crime/civil lawyers are very well used to working for super-wealthy white men whose sense of entitlement and belief that the rules simply don’t apply to them are,simply, breathtaking. Many of them have far more power than Andrew does too, because in their own organisations they are accountable to no-one.

I’ve often said on these threads that the fact Andrew is the public scapegoat for Epstein’s group of deplorables shows how he’s the one without any real power here.

You can simultaneously believe that Prince Andrew is a sleazy old man who exploited young women, AND that no crime has been committed. Or that there is no evidence of a crime having been committed. In a nutshell. And it is interesting that no one - literally no one - has a good word to say about Andrew (apart from his mother (judging by her actions - as in all things she is silent on the subject) and his ex-wife. Meanwhile those who have had even the smallest contact with him are now queuing up to tell the world how dim, entitled, pompous, arrogant etc etc he was.

@julieca

The reason there are miscarriages of justice are because you have extremely poor people who get incredibly poor legal representation. I have read of cases where people accused of murder were represented by a lawyer who had only been involved in defending people who had committed very petty crimes and were out of their depth. This really does not apply to Andrew. It is disingenuous to suggest this will be an issue at all for him.

That is simply not true. There are certainly cases where poor people have been convicted after receiving inadequate representation. However, there are also instances in both the UK and the USA where well-off, well represented defendants have been wrongfully convicted, usually due to misconduct by the prosecuting authorities in suppressing evidence that undermined their case or even fabricating evidence to support their case. Even without prosecutorial misconduct, there is still a risk. There always is when someone is accused of a criminal offence.

I am not saying it definitely would be an issue for Andrew but, given that this is linked to Epstein, who many regard as having escaped justice, and given the poor reputation of the American justice system, if I were representing Andrew (or, indeed, anyone else facing a possible accusation of a serious crime in America), I would regard this as a serious risk.

@prh47bridge yes there are miscarriages of justice of well-represented people. That happens in the UK and the US. No it is not peculiar to the US as you say. The higher rates of miscarriages of justice in the US is only to do with lack of decent legal representation for very poor people in the US.
What does happen in the US more is that rich celebrities are more likely to get off with crime. Trial by media is more common there and does appear to influence the outcomes of trials. With a very good pr firm and lots of coaching, Andrew could be found innocent on the basis of this.
But we all know Andrew will never be found guilty.

And yes I have seen various things on social media about Prince Charles connections with sex abusers. Andrew's behaviour does encourage people to talk about all these things in the past. It does damage the whole RF.

@CBUK2K Charles has been personal friends with a number of sex offenders. This is not about meeting people in a personal capacity.
That does not mean I think he is a sex offender, but I suspect he is a terrible judge of character or alternatively does not take sex offences seriously.
But honestly, it doesn't matter what I think, the reality is Charles close friendship with sex offenders like Peter Ball are being brought up in articles in the media and on social media. This is directly because of Andrew.

2) What you say and the way in which you are perceived in any form of media is open to massive manipulation though selective editing.

Absolutely. The RF are now being hoist with their own petard: decades of carefully crafting their communications and deciding what we see and what we don't, lying and dissembling about everything from their involvement with sex offenders and Nazis to their outrageous finances to all the land they mysteriously still own.

Finally being played at their own game. PA's trial, non-trial or whatever it ends up being is just a small part of that.

Out of curiosity has PA been named by other Victims of Epstein and Maxwell? Presumably like with Savile in cases of historic abuse it's not the voice of one that brings a conviction but the presence of multiple voices telling the same narrative.

Look at Russia during WWII, we had to form close ties with them despite their horrific behaviour because they were the lesser of two evils.

Certain "English" royals also formed close ties with the greater of the two evils though, didn't they?

While we're looking at Russia let's look at its neighbour Azerbaijan, which is what the media will be looking at if/when the VG thing goes away.

@Jackofallsorts

For the record I don't believe his story. I believe her 100%. But... I really don't know how the Met could have continued with this. There is no evidence he committed a crime in the U.K. There seems to be scant evidence he committed a crime in the US. It's her word against his (like it always is in these circumstances unfortunately) Being an arsehole is not a crime

Why? She wrote a tell-all book, in which none of this appeared.

She has previously accepted money instead of pursuing prosecutions.

This is the only accusation against PA, and all of it is distasteful rather than illegal.

I think everything is pointing to NOT believing her version of events.

There are many others she could target, Clinton and Trump and many others - why PA? Probably because he is too stupid to pay.

One of the issues that the Royal Family have is that there seems to have been 'courting of questionable figures' with other Royals. And I would expect that Prince Andrew knows enough to have some leverage.
PA will never be held to account for what he did. Powerful men rarely do. Epstein and Weinstein got in the way of 'more' powerful men. It's a shambles

Yes another woman has backed up what she says about Andrew and is prepared to testify.
And I remember many on MN defending Jimmy Saville until it could not be denied anymore.

@Hoolahoophop

Out of curiosity has PA been named by other Victims of Epstein and Maxwell? Presumably like with Savile in cases of historic abuse it's not the voice of one that brings a conviction but the presence of multiple voices telling the same narrative.

No, it's just the one.

No, it is not. A witness has said they will testify under oath that they saw Prince Andrew groping her.

And remember most people did not come forward until Jimmy Saville's death because it is very hard to fight against someone rich and powerful. You get crucified in the press, lots of people calling you a liar, intense pressure, and your sexual history ends up in the public domain. If I was her, I would not have pursued a civil case. She is very brave.

[quote julieca]@CBUK2K Charles has been personal friends with a number of sex offenders. This is not about meeting people in a personal capacity.
That does not mean I think he is a sex offender, but I suspect he is a terrible judge of character or alternatively does not take sex offences seriously.
But honestly, it doesn't matter what I think, the reality is Charles close friendship with sex offenders like Peter Ball are being brought up in articles in the media and on social media. This is directly because of Andrew.[/quote]
Funnily enough I was watching a brief interview with Charles yesterday based on him being asked about his carbon footprint (still huge) and he basically blagged his way through that and then when pressed said that he now eats meat only twice a week (yeah right, who's going to look into that too closely?).

I can't take him seriously and as well as being a terrible judge of character I just think he lacks integrity, personally.

Andrew will always have unsavoury gossip bandied around about him but at the end of the day what with being no crime committed as such and him also being protected by the Queen, he will stay untouchable. Sad but true. I think his Royal duties will be downscaled a lot and he will chose to bow out of quite a few. Fergie is choosing to stay quiet about everything because she knows which side her bread is buttered on and plus she's been ostracised from the RF before and likes her 'position' there which is semi being invited to Balmoral etc.

Interesting that Fergie said 5 days ago that the Royal Family "move together as a unit" - meaning they've got each others backs. No wonder Diana was bumped off.

@Hoolahoophop

Out of curiosity has PA been named by other Victims of Epstein and Maxwell? Presumably like with Savile in cases of historic abuse it's not the voice of one that brings a conviction but the presence of multiple voices telling the same narrative.

There has been one other alleged victim - Johanna Sjoberg. She claims that Andrew took a Spitting Image puppet of her and placed its hand on her breast in 2001. Accounts differ as to whether she alleges this encounter took place in London or Florida. Independent evidence is that the puppet in question was in Epstein's home in Florida in 2001.

She also alleges that in mid-1999 she and Giuffre accompanied Epstein to visit Andrew at Balmoral. However, this claim is problematic as Giuffre's evidence is that she did not meet Epstein until the summer of 2000.

Contrary to what julieca says, it is not clear if she will testify. Her lawyer has refused to comment on this. Given the clear discrepancy between her testimony and Giuffre's, if I were representing Giuffre, I would not want her to testify.

Giuffre's lawyers suggest that there will be testimony from other women but, given the lack of details, that could just be grandstanding.