Virginia Guiffre and Andrew settle out of court

[Suzanne999]

From Metro
Prince Andrew and Virginia Giuffre have reached a ‘settlement in principle’ in the civil sex claim filed in the US, court documents show

Does this show his guilt? Water down in some way his actions? I’m sure some will say this proves she was only in it for the money. I think she and a lot of underage girls were abused but because of the wealth involved those guilty will never face justice. Can’t understand why I feel sad about this outcome.

ON the throne

Genuinely don't understand why he would make a 'settlement' if he is innocent? If it was me I would want to go to court to fight it. Can someone with knowledge of the law give your opinion, as it doesn't make any sense to me.

Quicker and cheaper, even if you win.

In a non sleazy context, my company was involved in a civil litigation that was going to take about a month or two to conclude. The legal fees and consultancy fees for gathering the information and presenting it as a case were immense. We factored it in to the calculations of what our client would be due to pay and even in the best case scenario for them it was cheaper not to go through the process and sit down with the other party to come to a mutually beneficial settlement.

It's almost as if this was 'tidied up' so that a line could be drawn underneath and leave the monarchy clear to have an untainted Jubilee year. No admission of guilt and a sudden technical glitch of the original photo being lost or that she only ever had the 'copy' of the original. She's not got her day in court and in many eyes has lost all credibility for accepting a wodge of cash (to her charity if course)

It's almost as if there were very powerful forces at play that can make things 'go away'. It stinks.

@SoupDragon. Yes, I’ll happily admit it’s carefully worded by his side so that it could never be used as an admission in criminal court. It’s also very carefully worded by her side to make it clear that he accepts that she was telling the truth.

@SayYouDontMind

I so agree with you. Ther Queen's age, the jubile and all of this has made this wrapped up nicely with a purple bow trimmed with ermine.

She didn’t have the original evidence.

Which makes it a really strange decision to go forward with the civil case.

Could her lawyers could have rejected a settlement if they wanted to

As I've said before, the photo was 'not in her possession'. It's said it was with the FBI.

@Roussette

It's even more disgusting of PA because money was hardly tight and he was in a city with countless hotels and likely many other contacts

Agreed. The Consulate accommodation was offered to him.

It beggars belief that there are posters on here avidly defending him for spending time with a sex offender/trafficker ... even after his statement today regrets it himself. Weird.

I love how understanding and forgiving having one visit to cut all ties and other than that being no contact from conviction to the sex offenders death 15 years later gets vaguely worded as “avidly defending spending time with a sex offender”

@BlanketsBanned

Could her lawyers could have rejected a settlement if they wanted to

She could have rejected a settlement. It's her decision- not her lawyers.

I love how understanding and forgiving having one visit to cut all ties and other than that being no contact from conviction to the sex offenders death 15 years later gets vaguely worded as “avidly defending spending time with a sex offender”

I love how you call a four day visit with a sex offender (when the Consulate offered him accommodation) and a dinner party held in his honour... you call it 'a business meeting'.

Deluded

David Allen Green explainer. Worth reading.

twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1493625196670078976?s=21

@SockFluffInTheBath

Virginia Guiffre has shown the world who is is though.

A determined woman who fought harder than most could and most have?

I meant who he is. And I wasn't being quite as polite as you

One 3 or 4 day visit (he admitted to three days) to the sex offender's home, @EmpressCixi.

If you 'love' that you defending that makes people judge you then your behaviour is getting stranger and stranger.

It's not funny.

If your child had been a victim of a sex offender who was convicted of the crime and then released, would you honestly want people to be 'understanding' if PA visited their mansion for a few days (including a dinner party) apparently to 'cut ties'? Or course you wouldn't.

The main thing that I find sickening in all this Epstein/Maxwell/Andrew saga is that all the rich chums of Epstein seem to be getting away with it.

I know that VG has a case against Alan Dershowitz but as far as I am aware he has totally denied everything and has counterclaimed against her.

All of his other chums seem to have got away with it.

I still can't get the image of that portrait of Bill Clinton which was hanging in Epstein's house out of my head. To me that sums up the whole sordid disgusting behaviour of a group of entitled rich men who view women and children (especially those not in their social circle) as pieces of meat who are there to satisfy their sexual urges.

Sadly, apart from Epstein and Maxwell , none of them seem to have suffered any consequences. Well maybe Andrew to a certain extent but he's hardly going to be living in penury and regretting his actions for the rest of his days.

Well said.

Bloody hell, the handmaidens are out tonight!

@BadgerStripes

Genuinely don't understand why he would make a 'settlement' if he is innocent? If it was me I would want to go to court to fight it. Can someone with knowledge of the law give your opinion, as it doesn't make any sense to me.

A) He is not innocent. His defence was weak and a bit desperate.

B) The Royal family have been pressuring him to get it settled before the Queen’s jubilee celebrations in the summer.

@Cuck00soup

What I would like to say about him, and to the apologists on here would get me banned!

Of course he’s guilty. The rich don’t roll over if they have a point to prove, because they have endless funds to pursue their legal battles. He’s caved because he has to avoid court.

There’s also a lot of PR spinning this settlement, and some of it is very easy to read even on this forum if you know the strategies of reputation management.

How convenient the original photo was ‘lost’. It’s not the first time a crucial piece of evidence has been ‘lost’ by the police. They ‘lost’ Epstein too. Will Ghislaine be ‘lost’ too, I wonder, so the whole episode can be forgotten?

I expect it was a mixture of reasons. The power Andrew's very well connected friends have to ruin someone's life. The safety of her children, given the power of the people in the trafficking ring. If she was able to question Andrew in a public hearing in America, names might have been dropped by either one of them. Neither Andrew nor Virginia would have wanted to come to a sudden end and either could have, let's not kid ourselves about that. I can imagine pressure came down hard and Virginia's sticking point was that he admitted she was a trafficking victim, that he paid to her charity and that he apologised. His would have been not to actually admit it. And that's what we have.

"Well maybe Andrew to a certain extent but he's hardly going to be living in penury and regretting his actions for the rest of his days"

He's always going to have a roof over his head, food on the table & bills paid, that's for sure.

But I think that the loss of titles, having to step back from Royal duties & the realisation that he's not as important as he thought will be a huge blow to him.

There's really no point to him without all of that is there?

The only sympathy I have us with Virginia. How brave of her to fight this as much as she has, going against such rich and powerful people.

These scumbags view women and girls only as something to use and abuse as long as it's not their mothers or daughters. I wonder how PA would feel if someone had abused his daughters in the way that Virginia was treated.

I read it as the settlement will be hers and a donation to a charity ?

It was all sordid from the start. There were no right positions to be taken. He was a creep and took advantage of a possibly willing/groomed but very young woman. At 35, she decided to have her revenge. Nobody comes out of this looking good.