Who advised the Queen to walk into the Abbey escorted by Andrew??

[TinyTortoise]

This seems to be the most tone deaf and damaging decision. It's a public facing event with international leaders and royals. If it was a closed family gathering I could understand it - he is her son still- but why on earth would they allow him to escort her to her seat?! He should be invisible from now on and never represent the RF again. He could have attended and stood somewhere out of the way. She could have chosen anyone to escort her. It's staggeringly awful!

@DingleyDel

It’s a fact that VR was groomed by Epstein and Maxwell from a young age. Part of that was grooming her to recruit other girls (if that’s what you mean by incriminating herself). She has acknowledged this and the shame she’s had to live with. It’s part of the abuse. To blame her for this is absolutely victim blaming.

Always the woman's fault, whilst the powerful, establishment males are given a free pass.

A point about 'the law'. The edict is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Not 'innocent'. There's a world of difference. A second point is that there will not be any criminal conviction in a civil case, so 'proven guilty' in these circumstances is an impossibility in any event. There's a statute of limitations in US law - thankfully not enshrined in UK law and hopefully never will be - which now prohibits this as an outcome.

'But she took the money'. As a protestation against her motivations, this is irrelevant. As people have pointed out, it's a civil case. And civil cases settle on the basis of restitution for harm done, not achieving justice on the basis of culpability and sentencing in accordance with this. If Giuffre has been offered damages equal to or in excess of what she is likely to be awarded in court, she will have been advised to accept them. Judges don't necessarily look kindly on courts being used for any other purpose than that for which they're designed, and civil courts are not designed to extract an admission of guilt.

If someone shells out damages to the tune of millions, of course questions are going to be asked about their culpability in the case. But as it happens, none of the above is relevant. Windsor has been dropped from public life because he knowingly associated with human traffickers, in one case since the conviction. The photo of him in Central Park with Epstein was every bit as incriminating as the one in the house with Giuffre. And now Maxwell's received a further conviction, and he did claim to be close friends with her despite his later denial.

The Windsors are unelected and in a position of no accountability. His position is untenable. That's why he's no longer appearing in public. 'Innocent until proven guilty' is a complete red herring and an aside.

And yes. It is 'victim blaming', and the people engaging in this on this thread should be thoroughly ashamed. But that requires some level of insight, so they won't be.

@DingleyDel

It is SO depressing how on any thread about this subject there are so many posters who seemingly have absolutely no understanding of grooming. I would expect better of a majority female forum. I hope these people aren’t raising children.

I've raised two daughters (and two sons) now adult. I am proud of all of them, though we don't agree on everything

I think everyone who cares about this knows that PA has not been found guilty of a crime in a court of law. What we do know (the very basic facts) makes him unfit for public life and unfit to represent the RF. Yet there he is front and centre at a public event. The thread is about the message that sends. If they wanted him there in such an obvious manner it should have been private,

*Let's imagine that in alternative universe he put the Royal Family and his father first for once. Slipped in quietly into the pew without a word and was the epitome of discretion and left without a word, no one would have said anything at all about him, some may even considered him to be a decent chap after all, but no one thinks that now.
*
Don't be so naive. Andrew would have featured on the front pages anyway. If he hadn't turned up at all it would have been something about 'disgraced prince denied access to/fails to attend his father's memorial service'. He didn't come in the front door with the main attendees, doing the meet and greet - that would have been too much. If he'd 'slipped into a pew' cameras would undoubtedly have spotted him and there'd have been photos of him sitting away from his family and more 'lonely, disgraced prince not allowed to support his mother' etc headlines.

He was going to be damned however great or non-existent his involvement in the day.

I thought what happened was a perfectly acceptable balance. The queen was perfectly at liberty to have whoever she wanted to support her on the day. And Andrew was perfectly entitled to attend. He's been punished for bringing shame onto the RF by losing his titles, having to withdraw from public life and being vilified in the press. But he hasn't been found guilty of an actual crime (and trial by the media/Mumsnet doesn't count).

Honestly I've never liked him and am not a royalist. But the venom on here is quite breathtaking.

@MissMarpleRocks

The rape and Andrew apologists on this thread should be ashamed of it. I don't know why they just don't say 'she was asking for it' and be done

I’m not an apologist at all. I’m pointing out the law. A fact which a number of some on here are ignorant about. A person is deemed innocent until guilty.

Had VG felt strongly that she wished to have her day in court or was convinced she would succeed then she would not have settled. But she did settle; so I suspect she may have found it hard to prove her case to the burden of proof required.

Innocent until proved guilty is simply a mechanism in a court to the effect that the burden of proof lies with prosecution.

It does not mean that, outside a court, anyone has to presume anything. We’re all perfectly free to speculate and form conclusions how we wish. The only place one would have to be careful is doing so in the media.

VG was convinced she would succeed or she wouldn’t have brought the case. But even if she had won and was awarded costs, it wouldn’t be the full amount - generally 60-80% of total costs. So much of her legal bill would not have been recovered.

If she had refused to settle and lost her case she would have been liable for the other side’s costs; even if she had won she could still have been liable for some/all of PA’s costs.

Damn - bold fail. First paragraph should be bold

@Swayingpalmtrees

There are lots and lots of posts on here trying to convince us that Andy is a lovely lovely chap - nothing to see here at all. I wonder how they came to the conclusion that a huge multimillion pound settlement was Andy being helpful and cost cutting and not an admission of guilt, which seems wildly out of touch with the average person on the street's view of proceedings.

One can only imagine that the days are numbered for the RF as we know it.

I don't think he's lovely at all.

I'm not a royalist.

I think he's a buffoon.

I also know that he hasn't been proved guilty in a court of law and it is plausible that he might have got off (but still with a lot of damage to his reputation and with a lot of further damage to the royal family).

I also wonder what the girls that VG recruited into Epstein's world now think of her behaviour.

I don't think there is black and white in this "whole sorry mess".

VG was convinced she would succeed or she wouldn’t have brought the case. But even if she had won and was awarded costs, it wouldn’t be the full amount - generally 60-80% of total costs. So much of her legal bill would not have been recovered.

With this size of claim, I doubt that VG was too worried about 20% or even 40% of the legal fees.

One can only imagine that the days are numbered for the RF as we know it.

Every cloud ...

Preferably the Lords first.

I'm not condoning A but, he's not been found guilty of anything and Prince P was his father.

We will never know here because he refused to stand trial or even step foot to discuss it on US soil. Of course the fact is that no one will ever know for sure, and that serves his interests perfectly, if he were truly innocent one would imagine he would be eager, desperate even, to clear his name once and for all.

'if he were truly innocent one would imagine he would be eager, desperate even, to clear his name once and for all.'

Perhaps he doesn't trust the US legal system and who can blame him.

He will be following expert legal advice. I'm sure his legal team know more about these matters than mumsnetters. It would have been months of 'he said she said' and he'd already been found guilty by media so they probably thought it was an impossible task to prove his innocence.

@EthelTheAardvark

VG was convinced she would succeed or she wouldn’t have brought the case. But even if she had won and was awarded costs, it wouldn’t be the full amount - generally 60-80% of total costs. So much of her legal bill would not have been recovered.

With this size of claim, I doubt that VG was too worried about 20% or even 40% of the legal fees.

If she refused to settle, she may not have been awarded costs even if she won. If she lost she would have been liable for total costs.

@JaniieJones

'if he were truly innocent one would imagine he would be eager, desperate even, to clear his name once and for all.'

Perhaps he doesn't trust the US legal system and who can blame him.

He will be following expert legal advice. I'm sure his legal team know more about these matters than mumsnetters. It would have been months of 'he said she said' and he'd already been found guilty by media so they probably thought it was an impossible task to prove his innocence.

In fact, all of the avoidance tactics by his legal team failed, that is why the case was about to proceed to trial and why he settled.

There is no way a member of the royal family could drag the monarchy through a damaging court case, which he was by no means assured of winning.

Well the royal family seemed to think he has done something wrong, they stripped him of everything! So if his own family believe he is a bad 'un what are the rest of us supposed to think Janiie

The Royal family did not strip Andrew's titles away for no reason did they?
No. It was the last thing his mother wanted to do, they did so because I assume they do not buy into the lame excuses and clap trap trotted out on here!

It’s also depressing that many on here do not know or care to know how the law works or that it’s innocent until proven guilty.

If you were alleged to have committed a crime would you like to be convicted before trial? Guilty before being found innocent? Told because someone started a claim for X in a civil court, which you settled on lawyers advice, you were guilty because you settled?

Far be it from me, a lowly non-lawyer to hold an opinion about this, but some of us do have some ideas about how out of court settlements work.

As I understand it, the following factors are taken in to account:

• am I going to win?
• the emotional costs plus damage to family friends (particularly significant in Queen's jubilee year) and the risk of other public figures or unsavoury activities being exposed or drawn in to the debacle during jury questioning

(If you are a public figure there is presumably a risk that it is harder to persuade the jury to believe you as opposed to your opponent.)

• How believable is your explanation; was this an otherwise genuine and serious person making a genuine error? (That would be hard to prove in PA's case I suspect.)

The above reasons are why you chose to settle. Not because you are guilty but because of the degree of difficulty of proving your innocence.

Then based on the above, the amount of the money to pay to settle depends on the strength of claim of other side plus their risk that they could lose plus the amount of legal fees to pay.

So for example the lawyers fees are included in payment so maybe eg VG gets 8 mill, lawyers get 4 ?

So, in summary, although someone who is innocent of the charges can choose to settle, and settling absolutely doesn't prove their guilt, it could also be strongly argued that the high value of the settlement is indicative that the other side felt that they had a very strong case.

@PurpleDaisies

Human being. No idea what a Gibson being is.

Maybe he is half man, half guitar

@Swayingpalmtrees

Well the royal family seemed to think he has done something wrong, they stripped him of everything! So if his own family believe he is a bad 'un what are the rest of us supposed to think Janiie

The Royal family did not strip Andrew's titles away for no reason did they?
No. It was the last thing his mother wanted to do, they did so because I assume they do not buy into the lame excuses and clap trap trotted out on here!

We don't know what they think (or maybe you are a mind reader). They didn't really have a choice but to strip him of everything because they knew what the majority of the public thought.

'The Royal family did not strip Andrew's titles away for no reason did they?'

No one disputes he socialised with a convicted sex offender and for that alone he deserves everything that has happened to him. However he hasn't been convicted of a crime and when a complainant in a civil case settles it sadly does bring into question how tight their case was.

I have no sympathies for him, he's been a stupid arrogant man for decades and why he wasn't advised and reined in years ago by senior royals is absolutely baffling. However. He is still allowed do escort his dm into a memorial service and sit with his family.

The fact that PA remained friends with a convicted sex trafficker is enough for me to make a decision about him. Dreadful man.

@MissMarpleRocks

I’ll repeat Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Like it or not whatever the allegations Andrew has not been found guilty in a criminal court. I’d imagine his civil settlement will have made no admission of guilt either.

So whatever Anyones view of him as a person lowlife he is entitled to be there. He’s stepped back from royal life or been sacked. He’s not really going to feature much going forward as I don’t think PC will risk it.

But until such time as a court of law finds him guilty, he is innocent. In any event no charges have ever been brought to prosecute him.

You are wasting your time posting sensible posts when there are so many posters who seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge them.

As you said in one of your previous posts, let's hope that the posters who absolutely know Andrew is guilty and the whole case is complete black and white, never get called for jury service.

I also think the whole performance of placing Andrew front and centre must have been very embarrssing for the Royal Families who attended from other countries.

They attended that service in good faith, to pay respects to the memory of Prince Philip. I doubt they were expecting a walk-on part in Mummy Loves Noncey.

I am going through a civil court case at the moment, the defendant is 100% guilty, I would love it to go to court and have them admit it but have been advised by my counsel to settle out of court, which is what , I imagine VG was advised.

I think Price Andrew is a revolting individual and a liar. I also don't trust the FBI and would do much worse than pay £8 million of someone else's money to avoid any involvement in the whole Epstein thing. The idea that a genuinely innocent person would definitely choose to participate in that shitshow is very odd to me.

Or maybe we are part of the Judiciary mydog and see plenty of sex offenders play the game...