The case of Prince Andrew is not merely a sordid tabloid scandal; it is a stark and damning indictment of how wealth, title, and institutional complicity can conspire to place a man above the law. The evidence, when viewed not through the prism of royal privilege but through the cold lens of justice, constructs a cell door around the Duke of York. It is a door that should have been locked long ago.
Let us be brutally clear about the company he kept. This was not a case of an unfortunate acquaintance. Andrew’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, was deep and sustained and continued even after Epstein’s initial conviction for soliciting a minor. The now-infamous photograph of Andrew with his arm around a teenage Virginia Giuffre, alongside Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, is not just an image; it is an affidavit of poor judgement and a testament to his presence within their toxic orbit. To argue he was unaware of Epstein’s proclivities is an insult to the public’s intelligence. One does not repeatedly visit a paedophile’s private island and multiple residences for tea and intellectual conversation.
The testimony of Virginia Giuffre is not mere allegation; it is a credible, consistent, and harrowing account of sexual assault. Her detailed description of events in London, New York, and on Epstein’s island has never been materially shaken. In the face of this, Prince Andrew’s performance in his now-legendary BBC Newsnight interview was not a defence; it was a confession of a different kind. He confessed to a breathtaking arrogance, a belief that his word alone – his bizarre, now memefied claims about a Pizza Express in Woking and an inability to sweat – would suffice to extinguish the gravity of the accusations.
His alibis unravelled with the flimsiness of a house of cards. His claim that he was at home with his children on the night he allegedly assaulted a terrified, trafficked 17-year-old was contradicted by the evidence, forcing a humiliating retreat in his subsequent legal settlement. This was not the behaviour of an innocent man clumsily defending himself; it was the behaviour of a man caught in a web of lies, using his resources to craft a narrative that reality refused to support.
And let us speak of that settlement. The Duke paid a sum reported to be upwards of £12 million to Ms. Giuffre to make her civil case disappear. This is not, as his apologists suggest, a noble act to avoid dragging the monarchy through the mud. It is the oldest play in the book for the powerful: using immense wealth to purchase silence and avoid a day in court where one would be under oath. If Andrew were truly innocent, with the “convenient” lack of sweat glands he professes to have, why not clear his name in open court? The answer is obvious: because he could not. The evidence was too great a risk. So, he wrote a cheque, the modern-day equivalent of a royal pardon for oneself.
The argument that his status as a senior royal should afford him some protection or the benefit of the doubt is morally bankrupt. In fact, the opposite is true. His position made his alleged actions not just a crime but a profound betrayal of duty. He leveraged the prestige of the British Crown to gain access to a world of abuse, and in doing so, he dragged the institution he represents into the gutter. The mere fact that a man who has been so publicly and credibly accused of sexually assaulting a trafficked minor remains a free man, playing golf and being escorted by police officers funded by the British public, is a scandal that shames our nation.
For too long, the establishment has operated on the unspoken rule that men like Andrew are untouchable. They are shielded by palace courtiers, obsequious lawyers, and a culture of deference that treats royalty as a class above justice. But justice is blind, and it must be deaf to the whispers of privilege.
The evidence is clear: his intimate association with a known sex trafficker, the credible and detailed testimony of his victim, his own proven lies, and his multi-million-pound silence payment. On this basis, any other man in this country would have faced the full force of the law. It is a grotesque and poisonous double standard that allows Prince Andrew to stroll through the gardens of Royal Lodge, a free man. For the sake of his accuser, for the sake of every survivor of sexual abuse, and for the sake of the very principle that no one is above the law, the gates that should be closing are those of a prison. It is where the evidence points, and it is where he belongs.
