Despite his villainous behaviour, anyone feel a teeny bit sorry for Andrew?

[busymomtoone]

Before I get totally flamed, I despise his attitude, and the things he appears to have done - particularly the subsequent lying and apparent determination to shield/ hide misdemeanours. However, seeing the photo of his release today looking a broken man after such huge public downfall , plus thinking of him going back to an empty house on his birthday with no family support - even though I initially felt he deserves every indignity and consequence - there’s still a teeny part of me that just can’t help feeling just a little bit sorry for him. If it’s true that he was taken to a brothel at age 11 , whilst it would in no way excuse abusing others , it means he has also been a victim of abuse. Additionally it seems the Queen and his entourage have never ever said no to him in his whole life- so to reach his 7th decade before any consequences hit makes me question how resilient he will be able to be. Obviously main sympathies are always rightly with any victims , but even the most hardened and perpetual criminals often retain family support, he seems to have nobody. ( albeit if his own making ) or am I just being too soft?!

I would absolutely assume a massive cover up if he too 'commits suicide'.

I say that because I assume a suicide would be very convenient for the RF, monarchy and most certainly others. The press are very deliberately not focusing on the CIA, Mossad, Russian intelligence connections. It would put an instant stop to further speculation, the RF would become objects of pity. Anyone continuing to talk about it would be smeared as crass. It would shut everything down

A very convenient way to contain or forestall any leaks.

So it will be interesting to see if that's the outcome. 3 suicides of 3 important figures in this dark web of whatever it is.

*And I'd reach the same conclusion if he suddenly dies of 'natural causes' or at the hands of a 'deranged fellow prisoner', or 'an accident'.

I think that's tosh about him being a target. You can say that about anyone especially gang members but in the UK they go to prison. Jeffrey Archer served part of his sentence in Belmarsh he was no more targeted than anyone else. It's just an example that the press see him as different to the rest of us.

@NewspaperTaxis I complety agree re whistle blowing it's really not easy at all

People have dependants and people relying on them to work and even if they didn't they probably have bills to pay.

It is possible to belive that AMW expected barely legal women to throw themselves at him in nightclubs / life in general as he was a handsome Prince (years of 'Randy Andy' headlines) & an over indulged, dysfunctional man.
However, he was having sex with trafficked young women, knowingly or not.
There are many cases where the Law does not accept 'oooh, I didn't know' as a defence. If he did not know he should have known / taken care to find out.

He continued to be very close friends with someone imprisoned for facilitating child sex abuse & tried to help him restore his reputation. He KNEW (& he lied)

CSA is not 'a peccadillo'. It is a crime.
Not 'of it's time'. Wrong then. Wrong now.
The children involved, as well as the young women (& some young men)
have a lifetime of memories to contend with. Be thankful it's not you or yours.

Having read Lownie’s book, I don’t feel sorry for him at all.

It’s true he had an extremely dysfunctional childhood, but so did his siblings and they do not sexually harass nannies causing them to leave their jobs, or scream at their servants for getting their grandmother’s titles wrong, they don’t hurt the arm of police protection officers by driving too fast in Windsor great park.

Leaving aside his alleged major crimes of sexual abuse of vulnerable women , allegedly giving away classified information and endangering the state, alleged fraud by making personal deals while working for the state, alleged money laundering etc, unfortunately, what comes across is that he is an unremittingly crass, pompous, unpleasant bully of “the little people” as he sees them. And he apparently shows not a shred of comprehension about how he behaves or any remorse.

Also, with all of the privilege and resources at his disposal, this is the way he chose to spend his time? Making more dodgy money and gratifying himself sexually, no matter the collateral damage to others?

He didn’t even have to make much of an effort to help others. All he had to do was behave with a modicum of decency to staff and other people and he probably would have been forgiven for murdering a few pheasants and attending a few naval lunches a year.

I despise him honestly.

In a way, this is what the Royals are for and have always been for. They are, in a way, Johnny come latelys, the media arm of the British State.

Every so often one of them lands in the crap and get pilloried, put in the stocks, so to speak. Very rarely was it the Queen though it did happen (her poor response to the Aberfan disaster in the 1960s, her poor response to Diana's death); more often it would be Philip and his gaffes, I think the Duchess of Windsor, was it? (the still-alive tall slender blonde Catholic one, seen as bit tactless and a bit forward, we hardly hear of her now.) Others, too, on occasion.

It's to make the public feel we have some purchase on the situation, like we have a say in it. I think Harry got wind of this and got out when he could, to paraphrase the Philip Larkin poem, which sums this situation up.

Upstream, someone praises Princess Ann and she seems a good egg. But is she really? I mean, obviously in comparison to the others - the somewhat pale and uninteresting Edward, the self-pitying Charles, the boorish Andrew - but what if it were just her? She might not look so good, she can be a bit snappy, she has no overt charisma; 'they' might come for her instead.

William seems okay but then again, without other worse options, it could be easy enough to make a case against him - some say, well Harry says, that he used his younger brother to deflect criticism, to feed the tabloids stuff.

Andrew is the one being picked off, while those with real State power in the US are not. That's his role and possibly always was, like the sucker in a horror movie who catches on too late, it may well be this was what was always planned for him. Or, you could say, the Royal Family lack a Pam Bondi to shut this down, and wouldn't be able to procure one anyway.

Nope. Brought it all on himself. I don’t feel sorry for people who take advantage of women and young children and take money from paedos. Who knows what else he’s done?

Nope. I’m saving all my empathy for the young girls and women he abused.

@Sansgonads this is beyond what is politically correct in 2026.
When was it politically correct to behave like this man.

Archer isn't a member of the Royal family

This.

Please reserve your sympathy for VG and her children who will grow up without their mother. Or the nameless other women we do not yet know about who suffered at the hands of AWM and his evil associates.

I feel no sympathy for his ‘devastated’ children who continue to live in luxury. I may have missed it but don’t think they have uttered a word of sympathy or compassion for any of the victims of sex trafficking? The 14 year old girls forced to parade semi naked at Epstein’s gatherings? I guess it’s hard to find the time to think about others when you’re busy flitting across the Middle East under the pretence of working.

I agree that it’s a shame it ended like this for him. When you look at pictures of his return from the Falklands you see a man who held so much public admiration and could have gone to do a lot of good (although he was apparently already known as a pretty odious character in the Navy at that time).

Unfortunately a complete absence of basic intelligence combined with a lifetime of being pandered to has brought him to where he is now. But that’s no-one’s fault but his own.

Unfortunately, the incident we know about and can date took place in 2001, before the law on trafficking only entered the statute books in 2003. A law can’t be enacted retrospectively. More’s the pity.

But the crime he’s being investigated for is a serious one and he could still potentially do jail time. If they can figure out a way for him to have a fair trial.

Yes @Eastie77Returns - someone upstream commented on the psychology of whistleblowing in relation to one of my posts.

And this is one aspect it occurs to me - where cowardice creeps in through the backdoor, via victim-blaming. For all sorts of reasons, it is easier to feel sympathy for the perpetrator than the victim. Easier, as in more convenient. After all, in Andrew's case, you get to feel the lofty sensation of a royal no less in need of your sympathy. Heady stuff, no? And if you were to let him off, well, then there's no crime to investigate, no need to roll your sleeves up and do a bit of work.

A victim, however, well chances are they won't come out of it too well, as they have a lowly status in the situation - and I bet if you look hard enough you can find something a bit reprehensible about them anyway.

Not saying the OP is doing this. But there are all sorts of tales of reprehensible jailed folk somehow gaining the cooperation and sympathy of lowly screws.

None of us is without our secrets and peccadilloes- just thank god that what you've done and said in the past will remain there

I certainly have things in my past that I don't want aired in public, none of them are criminal though.

@SansGonads

I don’t think you can apply “it was alright in the….” to this.

It also wasn’t alright in 2001, or 2010.

We’re not talking about a different time, we’re talking about a time when most of us were adults and knew that association with sexual predators was not a wise choice.

Being royal doesn’t absolve him of that, and 16 years ago was not “a different historical time.”

@LizzieW1969 You make a useful point re the dates of the law re trafficking. Thank you. I still stand by my point that this is more than 'peccadillos' at any date. If AMW is convicted of a financial/state crime then so be it. His longstanding support of a convicted CSA criminal (JE) & his use of young trafficked girls remains outstanding, morally if not legally. And he is one of many.

Neither is AMW now. He's a criminal like all the other lags.

Will he cost the taxpayer more in prison or out of prison!

He's not been charged yet - not been on trial - in the eyes of the law not a criminal

No. Absolute not. The abuse of his power and nature of his (alleged) crimes place him firmly Jimmy Saville territory.

I said similar on another thread.

From birth this man had ALL the winning numbers. Privilege that billions can’t even imagine.

The ONLY thing he had to do in life was not be an incontrovertible cunt.

He didn’t have to work hard, or be clever. He didn’t even have to be especially kind. All he had to do was not be quite such an incontrovertible cunt. Really, you have to put quite some effort in to be a cunt of that magnitude.

Don’t feel any sympathy for that degenerate. He’s not fit to lick your boots.

If he goes to prison I think the royal family should pay the costs. It’s ’His Majesty’s Prison’ so let him foot the bill.

No sympathy for him and rapidly losing respect for other members of the royal family, too.

I think AMW is a vile enitled man and i'm glad he is finally being criminally investigated, but i can still recognise that the process is stressful and have empathy on a human level.
He has never been convicted of a crime (as of yet) but i hope justice is served.

Does anyone feel sorry for Eugenie and Beatrice?

Do you think they were aware of what vile humans their parents are?

I know at least 10 ppl who have met him and without exception every single one of them has said he is a lecherous, entitled, odious prick of a man. I have zero sympathy for him.