How have I only just realised this about Prince Andrew …

[LilacLemur]

I don’t know if I’m just oblivious to things but how have I only just realised Prince Andrew was 41 when he met Virginia Guiffre.

For some reason I thought this happened in the mid 80’s before he was married and definitely before children.

Knowing how old he was and that he had children just makes it so much more shocking (not that it needed to be).

Was anyone else blind to this?

Thank you , I do understand how it works ! I understand reputational damage . I understand about employment cases and how it will often be cheaper to settle than run a case .
This isn’t an employment case .

It’s also am unusually large sum of money even given what an OP has correctly stated.

You clearly didn’t based on your post.

I thought you might find it easier to understand in the context of employment cases. The principle is exactly the same - damage limitation including financial.

We don’t actually know actually know the sum it was settled on, but however much it was, I’d bet my house it would have caused more to run.

Andrew would have been a terrible witness even had he been 💯 innocent (see Maitliss)
it would’ve shed an uncomfortable scrutiny on his personal life.

I am pretty sure I recall reading that he was all guns blazing to fight but his judgement is poor (again Maitliss!) and he was strongly advised against it.

Has anyone actually investigated PA offered alibi of taking his daughter to a pizza hut party? Shouldnt be too difficult. Being a royal is like a city set on a hill. Everyone sees who comes and goes because these people always have their protection staff, If the story about PA buttonholing a member of his staff to "dig up dirt" on Virginia (standard practice in legal action) has been revealed then why not his trip out with his daughter if it genuinely took place.

Should also be pretty simple to prove if war trauma cost him the ability to sweat?

i was thinking today on a long drive about how rich and protected people fare in situations like this where very serious wrongdoing and moral transgresssion is alleged.

Someone pays someone some money and it all goes away for a bit.

If and when it comes back, creating a nuisance, the alleged perpetrator’s hitherto consumptive PR machine huffs into life, and issues a sorry-not-sorry type statement.

Alleged perp family shuts up shop and the head honcho goes to visit a pontiff, with a side trip victims of a hideous crime up north.

Edited for some fucking awful autocorrect - I’m very sorry, not intentional at all :(

He won't name names because it's his own family who are on the bloody list

If I remember correctly, the Personal Protection Officers records had been destroyed/lost

IMO the RF only really care about their image & the public’s perception of them. They can’t punish Andrew too much because he’ll probably threaten to go nuclear on them. KC’s hands are tied probably to a large extent b’cos of the dirt Andrew will have on him that won’t be helpful for his image & rule if it got out. William probably may have less to fear but will still have secrets he won’t want getting out. That’s why he can’t simply be banished from Royal Lodge or the RF. There is an opinion that Meghan is the least of their worries when it comes to damage potential. However the public or media aren’t going to let it go. But unfortunately the concern & interest becomes more about the soap opera surrounding the RF than about getting justice for any victims or their perpetrators being held to any account.

I knew he was fortyish and she was seventeen when that photo was taken (if it is genuine and nobody has seen the original), but he says he has no memory of meeting her and definitely didn't sleep with her.

He must have had loads of photographs taken with people he met, that means nothing. She said she wanted the photo to send to her family.

I am currently reading her book, 'Nobody's Child".

he says he has no memory of meeting her and definitely didn't sleep with her.

So why did his mother agree to pay her millions?

he says he has no memory of meeting her and definitely didn't sleep with her.

In the words of Mandy Rice-Davies...
"Well, he would say that wouldn't he?"

I expect, and appreciate, being disagreed with on a public forum.
You disagree with my opinion with one sentence, but did not express, in your first post, why; sometimes one sentence is not enough ( I now know that you only like verified facts)
On balance of evidence, photographic and written documents, I conclude that PA is not biological son of PP
We are talking about the RF, so doubt it will ever be verified
i note from your other posts on this topic have an air of confidence, and you underline this with the flourish of an exclamation mark

On the evidence of my eyes, watching TV footage of the four children of TLQE2, which includes mannerisms as well as parts of faces, I think that the Duke of Edinburgh was the father of all four of them. I have been seeing them for seven decades.

Most of them are in America and are protected by you know who. In Britain Peter Mandelson was recently exposed.

There’s a hell of a lot more people on the list who aren’t family than who are!

So seeing as you know it all, which family are on the list?!

Sorry but does no one else think it’s weirdly convenient that she’s dead?? All that stuff about the car or bus crash that never happened and then suddenly she kills herself just after that? Do we all just accept that’s what happened?

I don't think it is strange that someone obviously very troubled (understandably after all that abuse) kills herself. By the sounds of it her personal life involved a lot of conflict rather than support, whatever the truth about 'who did what'.

And her book was about to come out, which was bound to be very controversial, she would have been expected to do interviews, be questioned and picked apart (I don't think everything she said should be uncritically accepted, but the way it would have been questioned would have been brutal). Her role in bringing other girls into the situation used against her rather than being placed in the context of trauma and manipulation.

She didn't name names (apart from Andrew) in the book.

I find it quite believable that her behaviour was erratic, and she took her own life.

She took her own life 6 months after completing the book and seemingly her erratic behaviour, self harm and MH collapsed during this period in the run up to her finally succeeding in taking her own life.

I suggest that writing this book was exceptionally re-traumatising for her and she was not professionally medically appropriately supported during this time. She would maybe for the first time have to look back in detail at deeply disturbing events from her childhood of repeated sexual violence, multiple rapes, coercion and trafficking and consider them now from an adult perspective and mother to children now similar in age. This would uncover emotions she may not have had before and she had to find words to dig up and describe her inner horror - probably on an tight timeline as I suggest her publishers had a deadline and there were others with agendas on the gravy train - and maybe she was just abandoned with the deeper raw trauma she dug up once the book was finished and this was overwhelming and she spiralled.

I think writing this book would have been a very different, difficult and lonely internal PTSD experience whereas before her campaigning was expressing her anger in the ‘fight’ mode of trauma where she was getting external validation and was focused on the bigger picture of the criminals. Writing the book would have been a very different experience where she would be looking intimately and personally at dark traumas the details of which she may have blocked or buried unprocessed.

Just pondering the whole subject…and there’s been much discussion as to why/how Andrew is so awful (as compared to his siblings, for eg). I think that’s complex but looking a long way back, it was sometimes brought up in the press after his divorce from SF as to why he didn’t form another longterm relationship.

Charles, Anne and Andrew all divorced but the two eldest found new partners and have stayed with them. (Edward seems to be happy with Sophie). Andrew never did and I think, with hindsight, that was a bit of a red flag. It implied either that he was so awful that no one wanted him, or that he was a sleazy playboy looking for something quite other than a settled relationship.

I find it quite plausible that he’s a terrible longterm partner - the sort who very soon starts farting in your presence, hardly bothers to interact and just sits watching TV or playing Xbox. Or playing golf…

So, not ever husband material - the sort of thick, self-centred bore who only wants women for sex. The writing was on the wall.
.

I follow this whole sorry subject daily and while I've never been a fan of any of the royals it seems I'm fascinated and somewhat addicted to the history of our monarchy. One of the late Queen's uncles (Prince George) led a debauched and scandalous (albeit short) life and had there been television/internet back then he could have rivalled Andrew in notoriety but newspapers were the only source of knowledge for the masses until posthumous books appeared.

I can't possibly know the real and detailed facts of the current scandal and accusations but for what it's worth I've considered Andrew a pompous and arrogant piece of for decades and that's without knowing first hand what's gone on behind closed doors.

As for Virginia and her suicide I did wonder if there was more to her death which none of us can possibly know. If indeed she gained millions of £££s then another option may have been to disappear under a new identity.

I sometimes wondered this too. There never seemed to be any girlfriends even short-term ones and it would have been difficult to imagine a man with Andrew’s pre-marital track record remaining celibate.

Plus he was shagging around throughout his short marriage. He is to all intents and purposes a depraved sex addict. Epstein supposedly said he was worse than him!

I guess now we know. What did the RF know though? They must have known his reputation. Did they think it was harmless? Did they accept Sarah so readily because she took the bad look off him? Because people would speculate that they were properly together?

Sarah is a conundrum here. How can she bear to live with and support a man who abused young women especially with two daughters herself? She must be debauched too, and what damage must they have done to their daughters who appear to be perfectly respectable. Just a couple of long term boyfriends and no apparent sexual scandals?

I agree with this. He’s too lazy, selfish, stupid and shallow to ever want an actual relationship. KC gets a lot of stick but I’m very touched by his long and deep love of Camilla, sad though it was for Diana.

Whatever some pps say I don’t believe QE2 could ever have known the full horror, either sexual or financial. Yes, she will have known he was a playboy and maybe that he used call-girls but I simply cannot imagine either Andrew himself or a Secret Service agent giving her the full X-rated details. He will have told her a version - maybe that he’d been at a party and met a girl (maybe that VG threw herself at him or some rubbish) who then became a security risk….or similar.

I don’t think KC and Andrew have got on or mixed socially for years so he may not have been aware of his doings directly - but may have been briefed. We just don’t know!

I’d put money on the late Queen not knowing a fraction of it. Would also love to know what Prince Philip knew too. I suspect as a younger man he would have kicked Andrew’s arse into touch when he lost his patronages and no longer represent the RF.

I think if they had done then what they are only doing now, the scandal might have lost something of its sting. They were probably hoping it would die down after the settlement. I don’t believe the Queen went far enough and surely she must have known it was a ticking time bomb! If he had been cast out then, they could have washed their hands of him now. They missed their chance.

I think Charles’s and Camilla’s love story is heartwarming really. He has always loved her. Marriages break down; his and Diana’s was no different. It would have been wonderful if Diana had been able to find her happiness too.