You are making an awful lot of assumptions about me there Rousette.
Fine, I’ll be precise since you object to me using “defend” as a catch-all term. What Andrew is doing is basically not accepting service of the claim. This is not at all uncommon. No defendant has any moral obligation to say “yes please, do give me your documents”. Litigation is a costly and hotly contested process. It is highly tactical, for both claimant and defendant. Cross-jurisdictional litigation doubly so. There is no “behaving like a man” here and that’s a pretty odd thing to say. No lawyer would ever say to your client “yeah, let’s give up a positional advantage here so you look more manly”.
Not accepting service of a claim is the most basic thing a defendant can do to make life a bit harder for the claimant (who is likewise trying to make life hard for them). The next step would be for him, once served, to file a “forum non conveniens” application - essentially taking the position that the New York court is not the appropriate forum to hear this claim.
This is possible because Ms Robert’s has filed a claim against Andrew in New York. The basic rule is that the New York court does not have jurisdiction over someone who does not live there. Andrew quite obviously lives on the other side of the Atlantic. So she will have to prove this case falls within its “long arm jurisdiction” - i.e. the case has sufficient links to New York State to override the usual rule that it’s not fair to sue someone where they don’t live.
She has set out the barebones of how she meets this test in her claim - it states that on one occasion Andrew sexually abused her in New York. But that’s literally all it says. She will have to provide considerably more evidence than that to defeat a forum non conveniens application. Date, time, location, corroborating evidence etc. And meet the relevant standard of proof.
The other point to bear in mind is that this claim was filed on the last day she was eligible to take advantage of a New York law that extended the time limits for victims of sexual assault to seek damages. So, Ms Roberts has filed a barebones claim in a New York court, with no adequate particulars of the key allegations, seeking damages against a citizen of a wholly different country to take advantage of a law not available to her in the other jurisdictions where she also alleges he assaulted her. That is forum shopping: filing a claim somewhere with no connection with the defendant to take advantage of favourable legal conditions there. It is generally frowned on by courts because it’s seen as potentially unfair to defendants.
I would also note that by making a big press splash of the claim as soon as it was filed Ms Roberts gives the impression that this whole process is designed to force a speedy and presumably large settlement from Prince Andrew (betting essentially he’ll pay up to avoid this dragging out and causing years of bad publicity). I am not fond of the idea of doing this while criminal investigations are also ongoing - it runs a risk of being an abuse of process. In an ideal world a court would stay the civil claim pending the FBI investigation’s conclusion.
Also, I have actually read pretty much all of Virginia Roberts past court proceedings. I have every sympathy with her as someone who spent her teenage years being manipulated and abused by those around her. I don’t think that requires me to applaud all her actions though? I have never been fond of sharp litigation practice, personally.