Andrew shouldn’t lose his titles

[KindCompassion]

Removing Prince Andrew’s titles legally will take up a lot of Parliament’s precious time that could be better spent changing the law to ensure that men like Epstein who raped 13-15 year old girls pre 2004 can actually now be prosecuted.
They cannot at the moment. It is the Jimmy Savile loop hole. Most of his victims were this age because he knew after 12 months he had got away with raping them.

The Ministry of Justice and Sarah Sackman MP, the Minister responsible are ignoring this.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/25/thousands-of-women-abused-as-children-may-be-unable-to-get-justice-due-to-legal-anomaly

Am I unreasonable for saying we shouldn’t waste time stripping his titles, and instead insist that child rapists are prosecuted?

Is this you Fergie?

I think stripping him of his titles is performative. The damage to his reputation is done.

I agree unless and until he is prosecuted and convicted he should keep and not use them there are other people from the island people could be focused on but they scream about andrew at every available opportunity its a pointless waste of time money and effort there are other things to do in parliament tightening up loopholes protecting victims making sure it doesn't happen again actually learning lessons this time instead of bleating "lessons will be learned"

If this is an attempt to be smart, it fails.

The OP is hardly glorifying PA, FGS. She is suggesting that the time spent on debating and quibbling over his largely pointless titles could be better spent supporting victims of child abuse.

Really poor taste to come back with this.

He hasn't lost his titles, he's just agreed not to use them. As a PP said, it's performative. He needs to face real consequences.

I also think PA is coming under such close scrutiny that we are missing other powerful and wealthy men who will have abused those girls.

PA may be the best known but that doesn’t mean the others should be allowed to get away with it.

Who are the other men

My understanding is that Charles could strip him of the prince title through the issuance of the appropriate letters patent, and that while we would need act of Parliament to formally remove the Duke title, this wouldn't be necessary in order to remove the title of Prince. I believe that the king also has the power to strip him of his remaining honours. The real question is, why hasn't he already done that?

If the monarch won't act to the extent of his ability, then I think Parliament may have to step in. I understand that you feel this might take time and attention away from other causes, OP, but I think that's a slightly separate issue.

Well, it wasn’t Epstein and PA alone, was it?

I think it's right that he has given up his titles and I wish he'd take himself off somewhere quiet out of the Public Eye and grow veg or something.

But I do think he's become the Whipping Boy for all the others as yet unnamed.

He should lose them and everyone who is named and I mean everyone

I don't think there are any admin processes involved because he's voluntarily (ha ha) not going to use them.

I totally agree the law should be changed to remove that loophole, it's a total travesty.

Go away, Fergie, and give him a hand packing up the mansion.

The orange one def has his fingers in this dirty pie that’s for sure

This is extremely distasteful.

Yanbu, who really GAF about ‘titles’?

Presidents former Presidents sainted film stars

You cannot retrospectively change laws. It has to be a principle of justice that you face the charges you breached at the time, or where are we all?

The laws relating to child protection remain too lax and back then they were pathetic. But hard cases like this do not mean we should start charging people with things which weren’t the law at the time. However much we might want to.

Personally I'd rather this story had more discussion ....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwykd173l3vo

Parliament has time to do both surely? The PMQs where they hurl vollies of insults at each other and making harrumphing noises would be what I would cut out to get them more time to pass laws.

To be honest, there are some very notable exceptions; but whilst people like Blair have honorific titles (plus Savile was very well known about by the powers that be when they awarded it to him), they so very clearly aren't actually designed to convey any worthiness of respect, when they're 'establishment' figures - apparently the opposite, in fact.

With actors, singers, sportspeople, everyday celebrities, local heroes and the like, it's a very different matter.

The government has changed many laws after the fact. Look at the protections for murderers in NI. Raping girls was always criminal. It’s a procedural point that the victims had 12 months to report. There’s also the human rights of the victims to have the state prosecute their rapists.

I wasn’t aware this has taken up any parliamentary time to date as he’s volunteering to not use his titles, as opposed to being formally stripped of them.

I’m actually a victim who will never get justice because of this loophole. Thanks.

No he ought to be stripped of his titles and evicted from Royal Lodge. Maybe as a warning that it can be done and royals aren't untouchable