Palace likely to face questions about what it knew in Andrew scandal | UK News

Buckingham Palace may have hoped that Prince Andrew giving up his titles might decisively draw a line under the scandals – but the problems for the Palace show no sign of going away.

It seemed that it was the public’s outcry that forced the Palace to recognise that something had to be done, before Andrew was pushed into giving up titles such as the Duke of York.

That raises questions about whether the Palace should have acted sooner in responding to events involving Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein that happened many years ago.

Royal sources say the accusations against Andrew are being treated with “very great concern and should be examined in the appropriate ways to the fullest extent”.

Prince Andrew stopped being a working royal in 2019 – and as such Buckingham Palace has not been accountable for him in recent years.

But the era under scrutiny, from the late-1990s until Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview in 2019, was when he was a working royal – and for a decade he was a government trade representative.

And with more evidence emerging from that era, such as damaging emails showing links between Andrew and Epstein, it raises questions about what royal officials and government departments might have known at the time and what information might still be held.

Did the Palace ever challenge the prince over his account of events in that Newsnight interview?

It included the claim that Prince Andrew had cut off any contact with Jeffrey Epstein after their meeting in New York in December 2010. But emails have since emerged showing that Andrew had been in private contact with Epstein months later, with a promise to “play some more soon”.

About his accuser Virginia Giuffre, Andrew said he had “no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever”. But documents that emerged at the weekend suggested he had Ms Giuffre’s social security number and was asking the police for personal information about her.

It’s a claim that the Metropolitan Police is now looking into, with the support of Buckingham Palace.

Prince Andrew has consistently denied any wrongdoing involving Ms Giuffre.

Much of the recent scandal around Prince Andrew has come from the discovery of old emails, including from trawls of Epstein documents in the US.

It remains to be seen whether there will be any release of Epstein-related records in the UK, including from the Royal Household, whose staff would once have worked and travelled with Andrew, when he was moving in the circle of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Ms Giuffre’s description of meeting Prince Andrew in London included references to his security guards. What records are there of their movements, which might still be held by the police?

There are also unanswered questions about Prince Andrew’s finances. He no longer has financial support from his brother King Charles, but still has to fund the upkeep of his home at Royal Lodge in Windsor.

His connections with business deals with China, including a contact accused of being a Chinese spy, were never fully explained, even though court documents revealed details such as Prince Andrew sending birthday cards each year to the Chinese President Xi Jinping and privately meeting the Chinese ambassador.

These questions returned last week when pictures emerged of Prince Andrew with a senior Chinese politician who had been a central figure in the collapsed Chinese spy trial.

Has there been an institutional lack of curiosity, or a misplaced deference, in finding out about Andrew’s activities?

The era under discussion took place under the previous reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Is the current team at the Palace now having to face up to changing expectations over transparency?

It was a dramatic announcement last Friday evening that saw Prince Andrew giving up titles such as Duke of York and honours such as the Order of the Garter. But it was in a statement that showed little contrition and emphasised his innocence.

That’s prompted challenges about whether the sanction against Prince Andrew has gone far enough. Prince Andrew has agreed not use titles such as the Duke of York, but he still technically holds them.

Keeping this as a voluntary decision kept it within the Royal Family. But there have been calls for Parliament to play a bigger role in holding the royals to account.

York Central MP Rachael Maskell wants to change the law so Andrew’s titles could be completely removed. The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn says there was “no justification” for Parliament not to make this move to strip Andrew of his titles.

The House of Commons Library, in a new document published on Monday, shows Parliament could go a step further and remove Prince Andrew from the line of succession to the throne, if it had the agreement of the Commonwealth realms. Edward VIII had been removed from the succession when he abdicated in 1936.

King Charles could also remove Andrew’s status as prince, using a legal document called Letters Patent, which would leave him as Mr Andrew Windsor.

But a royal source says that the actions taken showed that the Palace had acted “swiftly and robustly on new email evidence which emerged” and this approach had avoided using up valuable parliamentary time.

The Palace will support the police who are looking into the recent allegations and sources say the focus shouldn’t be on PR battles or questions about reputation, but should be on Epstein’s victims and the “whole network of girls and young women who were abused and treated appallingly”.