Times saying seemingly authoritatively that Charles isn't supportive indeed the opposite with this latest 'push'.
Prince Andrew’s bath bombshell gives Charles the coronation shivers
A staged photo of ‘the prince and Virginia Giuffre’ in a tub has been published in a bizarre attempt to prove his innocence
Sunday January 29 2023, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times
A Harvard law professor who once acted for Jeffrey Epstein and a photograph of Ghislaine Maxwell’s bathtub may not seem the most obvious means of rehabilitating one’s image.
However, supporters of the Duke of York believe they could prove to be crucial elements in a campaign to help clear his name.
A year after he paid Virginia Giuffre an estimated £10 million to settle a US lawsuit accusing him of rape, Prince Andrew is said to be consulting lawyers in an attempt to get her to retract her allegations.
Yesterday, a staged photo of Maxwell’s bath from her former Belgravia home was released by her older brother, Ian, in an apparent effort to discredit Giuffre’s claim that it had been used for “frolicking” with the duke when she was 17.
Two family friends were pictured in the tub — wearing masks showing the faces of the alleged protagonists — in what appeared to be an attempt to demonstrate that the bath was too small for any sexual activity.
Last night, Alan Dershowitz, an American lawyer and academic who Guiffre accused of abuse before admitting she may have made a “mistake”, also gave Andrew his support.
“I hope he fights back in an effort to uncover the truth,” he said.
A fightback from the disgraced duke, however, is not something that will be welcomed by King Charles in the run-up to his coronation in May.
“The King still loves his brother very much,” said a source close to the monarch. “But in terms of secretly supporting a campaign for him to come out of the freezer, it’s rather the opposite.”
Royal aides have made it clear that Charles believes “a way back for the duke is demonstrably not possible”.
Andrew, 62, has been permanently booted out of his apartment at Buckingham Palace, in addition to being stripped of his public duties and royal patronages following his disastrous Newsnight interview in 2019.
Although he has always denied any wrongdoing, he settled his sex abuse case with Giuffre, 39, last February.
Interest in the scandal, however, has been reignited by the fact that a year-long “gagging clause” forbidding both parties from repeating any of the allegations will soon expire. Giuffre, it is claimed, is preparing to publish a tell-all memoir later this year.
The prospect of Andrew seeking to overturn the settlement — and potentially to extract an apology from his accuser — appears to have been fuelled by Giuffre’s recent decision to end a separate legal action involving Dershowitz. Giuffre had repeatedly claimed that she had been trafficked by Epstein, the late paedophile financier, to be abused as a teenager by the emeritus Harvard law professor.
However, in November she said she had suffered a “traumatic” youth and conceded: “I now recognise I may have made a mistake in identifying Mr Dershowitz.”
Dershowitz, 84, who agreed to drop a counter-claim against Giuffre, has represented a series of controversial figures.
His clients have included OJ Simpson, the former American footballer accused of murder; Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer jailed for rape and abuse, and Donald Trump, whom he defended during a presidential impeachment trial.
In 2008, Dershowitz also helped to negotiate a deal which led to Epstein swerving charges of child sex abuse and being jailed instead for only 18 months for a lesser offence. This weekend Dershowitz said he had not been in direct contact with Andrew. However, he admitted discussing the duke’s case with Blair Berk, one of the prince’s US lawyers.
“Blair Berk and I are friends,” he said. “She’s my former student and we’ve discussed lots of cases together, including Prince Andrew’s. We both have the same interest to get to the truth.”
He fondly recalled meeting the duke in 1999 when Andrew attended one of his lectures at Harvard Law School in Massachusetts during a royal visit: “I still have a letter from the prince, thanking me for my class.”
Legal experts believe that Andrew’s settlement with Giuffre can be “undone” if there is evidence of fraud, coercion or any other wrongdoing.
One possible line of attack that might be re-examined is whether Giuffre was a genuine US resident when she originally filed her lawsuit against the duke.
She stated at the time that she was a resident of Colorado, but Andrew’s lawyers pointed out that she had lived in Australia for all but two of the last 19 years.
Last night Giuffre’s lawyer, David Boies, said he had not been contacted by anyone in the duke’s camp. “If his lawyers wanted to pursue this, they certainly have my telephone number,” he said.
Boies accused Andrew’s supporters of “casting innuendos from the shadows” and pointed out that Dershowitz had conceded in the past that Giuffre was being “honest and truthful” to the best of her recollection.
Ian Maxwell, however, said the Dershowitz outcome is likely to benefit the duke and could have a bearing on his sister’s impending appeal against child sex trafficking offences, for which she is serving a 20-year sentence in a Florida jail. “If Andrew goes to court, my hunch is he would prevail or at least obtain a retraction,” he said.
Yesterday, The Daily Telegraph published the image of Ghislaine Maxwell’s bathroom — where Giuffre claimed she had been forced to seduce Andrew in 2001 — under the headline: “The photo that ‘clears duke’ over bath sex”.
Ian Maxwell, 66, told the Telegraph: “I am releasing my photographs now because the truth needs to come out. They show conclusively that the bath is too small for any sort of sex frolicking . . . if that helps Prince Andrew then so be it.” The move, however, could backfire, with many commentators on social media either ridiculing or criticising the image.
If Andrew does choose to pursue some form of legal redress from Giuffre it is a move that is likely to be supported by his ex-wife, Sarah, the Duchess of York.
“Sarah and the two girls [Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie] have been collateral damage in all of this,” a friend said.
The King, however, fears the “Andrew problem” will not be solved by another round of legal wrangling.
It is a view shared by his son, the Prince of Wales, who considers his uncle a reputational “risk” and “threat” to the monarchy.
Charles is understood to have helped Andrew financially in recent years, and to have agreed to foot the bill for additional private security guards for his brother, whose publicly-funded Metropolitan police protection is being reduced. The King has also shown the disgraced duke public support, allowing him to accompany the royal family to church at Sandringham on Christmas Day.
However, Andrew will not be given new apartments at Buckingham Palace when its £369 million refurbishment is complete. He continues to live at Royal Lodge, Windsor, with his ex-wife,who remains staunchly loyal to her former husband.
Charles’s largesse and inclination to include Andrew in “family events” is meant to be on the understanding that the pariah prince keeps a low profile.
Last June, as the ink dried on his settlement with Giuffre, Buckingham Palace let it be known that “thought will have to be given to how to support the duke as, away from the public gaze, he seeks to slowly rebuild his life in a different direction”.
A Palace spokesman aired the royal family’s view that “the task of starting to support him as he begins to rebuild his life will be the first step on a long road and one that should not be played out every day in the glare of the public spotlight”.
There will, therefore, be dismay in royal circles that Andrew is back in the spotlight, hogging the headlines just as the Princess of Wales launches a new early years campaign this week and as the King hopes for a “clear run” to the coronation on May 6.
A Covid diagnosis conveniently kept Andrew away from all Platinum Jubilee events last year.
The duke will be hoping he can stay fit and well to take up his seat in Westminster Abbey for the coronation. Many in royal circles will take a different view.