Do you think Andrew will face any criminal charges?

[LotsInCommon]

I’m only now reading Virginias book and it’s a very difficult read.

It’s 7 months on from Andrews arrest for misconduct in public office. Do you think he will be charged with anything to do with that? Do you think he’ll be charged with sexual abuse and rape?

That's interesting...

Yes Congress has been crap on their side. but it is still true that the revelations about AMW, even the misconduct in a public office stuff was known about and hidden by the UK establishment until it was all incidentally exposed by people over whom the RF have no influence or power.

MPs generally don't go after this sort of stuff, anything that hints at the dark heart of the British State. They sort of know not to.

I sent a 50-page dossier about euthanasia of the elderly in some Surrey care homes - carried out via enforced dehydration; a variation of the Liverpool Care Pathway really, which is meant to be illegal - and the bullying by the Council's Safeguarding heads of any families who twig what is going on. I sent it to my local MP Helen Maguire, all Surrey MPs in fact, loads of Surrey councillors, the whole shebang and got really no response, save one from Ms Maguire which basically was along the lines of, Can you keep our correspondence confidential between us...

MPs are generally not that powerful - they can deal with small fry incidents but generally the bigger the scandal the bigger the cover-up. The Sky News journalist Martin Brunsel (?) said years ago that the Met really had no enthusiasm or appetite when it came to investigating links between Andrew and Epstein. Probably because they're all freemasons and so on but there you go.
Journalists also know their limits, it seems, though credit to Lownie for pushing on with it.

Lownie is very dogged I must say. I respect him for it.

I do not trust Lownie at all, he is a scandalmonger. Peel off the veneer and he's no better than many other 'historian/royal experts' with his 'royal insiders' and 'sources close to'. Don't be fooled by his socially inept, obsequious manner.

I have no stake in this and think Andrew has been an idiot, far too expansive and effusive when it comes to friendly acquaintanceships. He was better in the Navy, it suited him, gave him focus.

Except they hated him in the Navy, really hated him

As for Lownie, where would we be without him that's what I say. It's all huge big cover ups on and on and anyone who can doggedly reveal some of the truth, at great personal cost, has my respect

Lownie does actually give credit to AMW for the areas in which he did well in the navy. He did do better with that structure and purpose I think, I don’t think he was particularly popular though and comes across as rather a lonely figure, who isn’t able to relate to his colleagues normally, Not surprising really, given his upbringing,

I don’t blame AMW for that btw. I think growing up as a Spare is very difficult psychologically, and I think most ‘spares’ are over indulged for that reason, when the opposite should happen.

Fwiw I think you are completely wrong about Lownie who didn’t set out to write a negative “take down”; he simply writes about what he finds in his very thorough research. It took him four years to write Entitled and every point included in it is double verified from separate sources.

He has uncovered a monumental scandal and has doggedly kept going in the face of endless FOI requests being denied, legal letters, personal threats and now strange events happening with the US edition.

And you really can’t compare him to your bog standard royal commentator. Lownie is very well known as a literary agent and his primary interest is the correct and accurate preservation of historical documents.

Lownie is Cambridge educated. He has a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Edinburgh, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He founded and is president of the biographer’s club and .is a board member of the international biographers’ club. He founded and runs a very respected literary agency which focuses on non-fiction. He is a trustee for the campaign for freedom of information and a visiting professor and chair at Ulster Literary Biography Research Centre.

He is also a monarchist who believes that we the British public deserve a monarchy which is slimmed down, transparent, financially accountable and subject to more scrutiny.

He also holds an expectation that public life is conducted with basic decent standards and I can’t say I disagree with him there.

I read her book and thought it very odd, she didn't say which family member(s) raped her as a child, ran off with some random man at a very young age was 'rescued' by her father, then went off with Epstein doesn't name any of the other important men she slept with for Epstein, was living with Epstein more or less as a wealthy, dysfunctional family with other girls, while also having a rather horrible boyfriend on the outside all of the time. There seem to be at least a few unnamed people who should be prosecuted well before Andrew.

I still think Andrew thought she was happy to sleep with him and wasn't being forced to, he was always a vain womaniser who thought he was god's gift. Not a nice man but I don't think he had to rape anyone to get all the sex he wanted.

I haven't read Lownie's book but I became very sceptical about him when I saw some lecture he gave on YouTube and he was trying to push a big connection between Fergie and Puff Daddy and even Beatrice and the sole evidence he could present was some photograph of Fergie and Beatrice from about 20 years ago at some event at a time when Puff Daddy was a huge star and zillions of people were having their photo taken with him at social events and the photo proves nothing. In fact, they obviously didn't know each other in the photo. It was just a "polite" photo.

Books about various lesser royals, especially scurrilous, dim ones are an easy way to make a name for one's self. Lownie kind of burst on the scene with his book of Andrew and Fergie, but I used to follow the publishing world and he used to have a publishing house that published rubbishy, mostly non-fiction books that publishers with higher quality standards wouldn't publish. He's just another chancer.

If there is a case to be made against Andrew, with evidence that can stand up in court, then I believe he will face criminal charges.

No he too protected by the rf.

I would strongly recommend that you read the book before making any judgements about it.

The allegations about a relationship between Sarah Ferguson and rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs were included in the updated pb second edition of Entitled so it will have been thoroughly verified and the publisher’s legal team will have checked it. Lownie didn’t just go on a photo as proof btw, he says he had multiple verified sources from employees in both camps.

The book isn’t primarily a take down of lesser royals. It’s mainly about financial accountability and lack of scrutiny. And it goes far beyond what one minor figure in the RF has done. AMW’s case and the subsequent cover up, highlights institutional problems that go directly to the Crown.

It’s “odd” that a financially disadvantaged girl who has suffered sexual abuse from a dysfunctional home gets sexually exploited by privileged, rich men?

Isn’t that the way things work all over the world?

I couldn't disagree with you more. Have you read 'The Mountbattens' or 'Traitor King' (about Duke & Duchess of Windsor). If you had read anything else of his I really don't think you would be rubbishing him like this and calling him 'a chancer'.
The Mountbatten book is fascinating, such an interesting read, if heavy going in parts. And no, it is not all about his predilection for young boys. It's more of a historical telling of the Mountbattens. His research is meticulous, he names sources. Have you just formed your opinion of him from a youtube interview or have you actually read any of his books?

They have.

But OP nothing will happen. He is still protected by the royal family living on a mansion on the kings private estate.

That's it exactly.
How do they prove he knew she was trafficed and not there of her own free will?

Unfortunately she looks happy enough in the only photo we have seen of them together.

She was abused by many people including her own father. That's the sad thing she had nobody to protect her ever.

I've fomed my opinion of him from his previous career as a publisher, excerpts I've read of his books and things like his lectures on YouTube.

This slightly tends to be the way it works - it's not supposedly prostitution as I don't suppose money changes hands, so it is less of a blackmail situation if the wheels come off. All that's happened is the bloke has had sex with a happy, young good time girl, who enjoys the associated trappings of wealth and privilege - she will not technically be a prostitute.

Same thing with Christine Keeler in the early 60s, though she was dubbed a 'call girl' but generally she was part of that social set. Most get groomed early on - the Rotherham/Rochdale grooming gangs, well, they roped in young girls with attention and so on. At some point they may be happy with their situation.

But how you would quite prove anything I don't know.

Well, here's a Times review of Lownie's Mountbatten book - the review dives straight in with the 20-page chapter 'Rumours' near the end, which outlines allegations of abuse of kids in a Northern Ireland care home, alongside Mountbatten's gay trysts - throughout their marriage his wife was serially unfaithful, it should also be said.

I have noticed Lownie seems a tad upbeat and jolly in his interviews but I don't know to what extent that should invalidate his research - I'll go with everyone else's opinion on Lownie rather than yours.

But what were the odd edits made to the US version of the book that someone mentioned upstream?

I have read Mountbatten. It's a very big read covering his life from the beginning through to viceroy and the India/Pakistan split. And of course Edwina and her duties and involvement. And the 18 lovers she was running concurrently! The young boys stuff was a very small part of the book at the end.
It was an interesting informative book. I changed my mind somewhat on Edwina, but not Louis. He was very flawed and made some disastrous miscalculations that cost lives

He was Charles's mentor and a father figure to him. Not sure that was a good thing

I can't see the text of the review properly. I'm not sure to what extent it matters, anyway. Lownie chooses easy targets with sketchy reputations (or, in Mountbatten's case, are dead) and can write about them however he chooses, whether it's complete nonsense or not, as long as he says there are "rumours" and "sources say".

As you point out, that chapter is literally called "Rumours". The Mountbatten book came out in 2019 so Lownie must have had the idea of writing it a few years earlier - perhaps around the time of the fabricated Carl Beech allegations, when Beech made up total lies about a VIP sex ring primarily involving the military but also politicians and and said he and other boys had been abused by senior officers over a period of several years when he was a child. A major inquiry was even established, but it collapsed because Beech's allegations were all a bunch of lies. But, when Lownie decided to write the Mountbatten book such allegations, however spurious, were in vogue.

Lownie is fairly supportive of Charles Spencer. I'm wondering what he makes of Spencer's claim that his father, John Spencer, and the then Princess Elizabeth had a romance but Mountbatten put a stop to it.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-35867177

This is all very well but really in that case you are saying all history is under review, since often it involves writing about people who are dead and cannot answer back and have questionable reputations.

It is a favourable review in the Times. I don't know where else to take it - if they were claims made on the dark web or some dodgy website then they would be even easier to dismiss. If it is aired in the Times and you still dismiss it, well, not much to say...

Except, perhaps, that the Royal Family is hellbent on suppressing tonnes of evidence regarding Mountbatten, they simply refuse to cooperate, so that's another level of oddness isn't it. Maybe despite doing that there is actually nothing to hide?

I tried to print a large jpeg but Mumsnet couldn't accept it.

I doubt he will be charged over anything to do with Virginia Guiffre's book.
First, although she wrote a book, it does not mean anything/everything in it is true, and as she is deceased, she is unable to be cross examined on it at all.
So as regards any sexual crimes / or morally reprehensible behaviour, I doubt that anything could be brought to a trial.
A second person she accused, she backtracked on.
On the subject of whether he emailed confidential information to someone (was it Epstein?), you would have to understand all kinds of things, such as what training did Andrew have for the position of trade envoy?; Did he know the information was confidential and not to be passed on?, Was he asked to forward the information?; Who else was forwarding information? (I suspect this kind of thing is absolutely standard amongst his contemporaries). On this aspect, I think the police have not received all the emails for the US, so are currently unable to process this any further.

He was passing on confidential government papers to a go between. I will have to come back tomorrow and name him but it was all over the media at the time.
Saying he didn't know is pathetic
I am not sure he would have been arrested if there was no problem with that

@milveycrohn someone being dead does not prevent a conviction. Otherwise no one could ever be convicted of murder.

Andrew will never face justice for being a nonce because he is protected by the royal family. They knew ages ago what he was up to and did nothing. Even nie the king is housing him and financially supporting him.