There have been calls from MPs for Andrew to be formally stripped of his titles
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 BBC 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.
