Senior royal insiders say the idea Prince Andrew could still return to public life, despite the swirling controversy around his friendship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, must be quashed, even though whether innocent or guilty, the element of discrimination applies. Though, what looks to be a legally binding and enforceable court Order, may qualify as legal estoppel, where having already been paid to stay all claims, the Ms Robert seeks to avoid the consequences of a previous agreement, by making further claims to damages. We would argue that with all the adverse publicity this case has received, that the Duke has already been punished enough. Regardless of innocence or guilt. Ms Roberts set a case precedent valuing her sexual ordeal with Epstein (and/or others) @ $500,000 dollars.

THE INDEPENDENT 4 JANUARY 2021 - PRINCE ANDREW ACCUSER'S SETTLEMENT DEAL WITH EPSTEIN MADE PUBIC AHEAD OF ROYAL'S COURT HEARING

Details of a settlement between Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre that Prince Andrew’s lawyers believe will stop him facing a sex abuse lawsuit have been made public on the eve of a pivotal court hearing in the case against the royal.

A 2009 legal document unsealed by a New York court on Monday revealed Ms Giuffre was paid $500,000 (£370,000) to settle her claims against the late paedophile financier, a former friend of the Duke of York.

The 12-page deal shows Ms Giuffre agreed to “release, acquit, satisfy, and forever discharge” Epstein and “any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant”.

Lawyers for the Duke of York, who is being sued by Ms Giuffre for alleged sexual assault when she was a teenager, say this means her case against him should not proceed as she agreed to drop any legal action against people connected to Epstein.

Ms Giuffre, formerly known as Virginia Roberts, alleges she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew in London and at two of Epstein’s properties when she was 17 and a minor under US law.

The royal has strongly denied the claims and a hearing on his motion to dismiss the case will take place in New York on Tuesday morning, when a court is expected to hear legal arguments over the wording and implications of Ms Giuffre’s settlement with Epstein.

Details of a settlement between Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre that Prince Andrew’s lawyers believe will stop him facing a sex abuse lawsuit have been made public on the eve of a pivotal court hearing in the case against the royal.

Prince Andrew is seeking to have the civil case dismissed as a 2009 settlement absolved him of any liability.

A 2009 legal document unsealed by a New York court on Monday revealed Ms Giuffre was paid $500,000 (£370,000) to settle her claims against the late paedophile financier, a former friend of the Duke of York.

The 12-page deal shows Ms Giuffre agreed to “release, acquit, satisfy, and forever discharge” Epstein and “any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant”.

Lawyers for the Duke of York, who is being sued by Ms Giuffre for alleged sexual assault when she was a teenager, say this means her case against him should not proceed as she agreed to drop any legal action against people connected to Epstein.

Ms Giuffre, formerly known as Virginia Roberts, alleges she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew in London and at two of Epstein’s properties when she was 17 and a minor under US law.

The royal has strongly denied the claims and a hearing on his motion to dismiss the case will take place in New York on Tuesday morning, when a court is expected to hear legal arguments over the wording and implications of Ms Giuffre’s settlement with Epstein.

If the case moves forward, the Prince could be forced to sit for a deposition under oath and turn over decades of private communications.

The royal’s attorney Andrew B Brettler has previously argued the civil case should be dismissed as the 2009 settlement absolved him of any liability.

But David Boies, an attorney for Ms Giuffre, called the document "irrelevant" to her claim against Prince Andrew.

"The release does not mention Prince Andrew. He did not even know about it," he said. "The reason we sought to have the release made public was to refute the claims being made about it by Prince Andrew's PR campaign."

US district judge Lewis Kaplan has said a trial could begin between September and December of 2022 if no settlement is reached.

Prince Andrew’s former friend Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of five charges of grooming and trafficking teenage girls between 1994 and 2004 in a separate federal criminal trial last week.

Ms Giuffre’s claims did not form a part of the prosecution case in Maxwell’s trial.

The 38-year-old mother-of-three, who has lived in Australia for more than a decade, is suing Andrew for emotional distress and battery.

The Prince Andrew’s spokesperson told The Independent they had no comment about the unsealing of the 2009 document, which does not mention him by name,

The 12-page settlement states that Ms Giuffre, also known as Virginia Roberts, agreed to “remise, release, acquit, satisfy, and forever discharge” Epstein and “any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant from all, and all manner of, action” including “State and Federal, cause and causes of action (common law or statutory), suits, debts, dues, sums of money, accounts, reckonings, bonds, bills ... and demands whatsoever in law or in equity for compensatory or punitive damages”.

It is understood that Prince Andrew will claim he falls within the category of “other potential defendants” because Ms Giuffre had identified him as one of her alleged abusers at the time she entered into the 2009 settlement agreement.

Lawyer and legal writer Lucia Osborne-Crowley told The Independent the “very broad” terms of the 2009 settlement could protect Prince Andrew from Ms Giuffre’s lawsuit.

“It is very possible that the settlement agreement between Virginia Roberts and Jeffrey Epstein protects Prince Andrew,” she said.

“That’s because the language in the settlement is very broad – it says that any third party that could be considered a ‘potential defendant’ in the Epstein lawsuit will be ‘forever’ shielded from any and all claims brought by Ms Roberts.

“It also specifically says that all potential defendants are protected from all lawsuits regardless of whether they are brought in federal or state court.”

According to a report in The Sunday Times, royal courtiers are in discussions about what to do if Prince Andrew loses the civil suit launched by Ms Giuffre in September 2021, which alleges that she was forced to have sex with the royal three times while she was being abused by Epstein.

The source was also quoted as saying that the prince would be asked to give up his remaining patronages of charities and would not be able to go abroad due to the “risk of extradition”, which would result in “a form of internal exile”.

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said the comments were “without foundation”.

BALMORAL OR IMMORAL - You would be persuaded by this picture, that Epstein and Ms Maxwell, were good friends of the Duke. On the other hand, Prince Andrew was always entertaining big business, in promoting Great Britain Ltd. Much the same as Queen Elizabeth brokered foreign deals on HMY Britannia.

The Prince may not remember the 17 year old Virginia Roberts, but unless this photograph is a fake (doubtful - it must have been checked out) he did meet the young lady at some point - even if only posing at a drinks party, and Ghislaine Maxwell was at this meeting. One question we would ask is how do we know the age of the claimant from this picture? She could easily be 18 or older. Or she may have claimed to be over 18, for Ghislaine to have allowed Virginia to have been photographed with the Duke. No doubt, testimony from Ms Maxwell will clear that up. And where and when was the picture taken, and by whom? You can imagine that with US State laws varying, and this picture looking for all the world like London, where the age of consent is 16, the precise details relating to the taking of this picture are extremely important. It might be worth checking passports, etc. Not that we are saying anything did or did not happen between the Prince and Ms Roberts. For the sake of argument, if some did take place (that the Duke cannot recall) and it was in London, then no crime had been committed. You can marry a girl in Spain and Tahiti at 13 (we think). Hence, any prosecution would need to be very sure of dates and places to begin mounting an investigation. It would not be fair to even interview the Prince, until the facts had been established, for fear of trying to trick him into something he could not possibly remember. We know of a case where penetration had been alleged during a police interview, but the evidence told only of natural marks and a hymen that could not be opened [even] with labial traction. A so-called child specialist gave evidence at trial, that the natural marks could only be explained by penetration. Legal Aid restrictions prevented the defendant in that case from instructing a specialist. Sussex police allowed the jury to hear misleading evidence, and the man was convicted on naturally occurring marks, found in females of all ages. British justice is such that despite other discrepancies being identified, such as a diary being attributed by the trial judge to the defendant, when it belonged to a psychiatric nurse, an appeal has never made it back to the Courts. Europe sent back a claim after 4 years, suggesting the wrongly convicted man had a domestic remedy. On that basis, good luck to anyone facing trial in the UK. At least you have unlimited funds for your legal team in the USA.

DAILY MAIL 31 DECEMBER 2021 - STEPHEN GLOVER: LEGAL TRICKS WON'T WASH ANYMORE - PRINCE ANDREW IS JEOPARDISING THE MONARCHY

Can Prince Andrew save himself? Or are his reputation and good name about to be dragged further into the gutter, damaging not only him but the monarchy as well?

No one can yet answer these questions definitively because no one other than Prince Andrew and a handful of people know whether he is wholly innocent of allegations made by Virginia Giuffre (formerly Roberts) that he sexually abused her in London and New York and on a Caribbean island in 2001 when she was 17.

If he is blameless, as he vehemently insists that he is, it is obviously in his interests and those of the Royal Family for him to strain every sinew to convince the world of his innocence. This he has so far not done.

Until this week the prince had just about got away with a combination of stone-walling, evasion and obfuscation, though at enormous cost to his credibility. The conviction of his friend Ghislaine Maxwell as a child sex trafficker demands an entirely new approach on his part. Things have suddenly got an awful lot worse for him.

The spotlight is shining much more powerfully on Andrew partly because we now know that the woman whom he invited to Balmoral, Windsor Castle and Sandringham is both depraved and wicked.

So that famous photograph of a smiling Prince Andrew with his arm wrapped around the bare midriff of Virginia Giuffre, as Ghislaine Maxwell beams in the background inside her house, inevitably takes on a deeper significance.

What exactly happened that night? What on earth was the 41-year-old prince doing with his arm around a 17-year-old girl who was part of a sex trafficking ring of underage girls nurtured by Maxwell for her friend, the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein?

The spotlight also homes in on Andrew because the allegations of Maxwell’s and Epstein’s victims have now been believed and upheld by a jury, though Virginia Giuffre herself was not called as a witness during the trial.

Can the prince seriously believe that his previous policy of bobbing and weaving – he told BBC’s Newsnight in a disastrous interview in 2019 that he couldn’t even remember meeting Giuffre – is remotely sustainable following Maxwell’s conviction?

Just look at the way he and his lawyers have conducted themselves over recent months. Andrew was accused of trying to ‘dodge, duck, run and hide’ in his mother’s palaces to avoid legal papers being served on him after Virginia Giuffre filed a lawsuit against him. He should have accepted them like a man.

His aggressive US attorney, Andrew Brettler, attempted to argue simultaneously that Giuffre’s claims were ‘baseless and potentially unlawful’ whilst also saying that the court papers had not been properly served. Judge Lewis Kaplan reasonably responded: ‘Let’s cut out all the technicalities and get to the substance.’

In October, the prince’s lawyers changed tack by branding Giuffre as a ‘money-hungry sex kitten’ who had ‘initiated this baseless lawsuit against Prince Andrew to achieve another payday’.

Their latest swerve was to suggest earlier this week that Virginia Giuffre was pretending to be a US citizen but lives in Australia, and therefore the American court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case. The judge will consider the arguments on Tuesday.

Whether in relation to Giuffre’s lawsuit, or to other charges that may lie along the road in the wake of Maxwell’s conviction, Prince Andrew is going to have to stand and defend himself. If he declines to do so, the world will increasingly conclude that he is guilty – with possibly calamitous consequences for the monarchy.

The prince has hitherto conducted himself as though the accusations against him are entirely his business. He apparently believes that if he wishes to give an interview and shoot himself in the foot, or duck court papers, or unleash attack-dog lawyers who use abusive language, it is only a matter for him. 

It’s not, of course. Andrew’s reputation is on the line, and he has so far managed to guard it in a spectacularly clod-hopping way. But there is something infinitely more important at stake – the position of Her Majesty the Queen as she approaches the 70th anniversary of the start of her reign.

If the entitled and haughty prince continues to give the impression that he believes there is one set of laws governing the behaviour of people like him, and another for the rest of us, the monarchy is certain to suffer lasting damage.

That is why he must not go on running the show in such an incompetent and haphazard fashion. He should give a proper account of himself, and attempt to explain his close relationship with the child trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, and with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein who killed himself in a jail cell.

An innocent man should have nothing to fear from the law. The prince has every right to insist on a fair hearing, but once that right has been granted, evading very serious charges becomes shaming, contemptible and destructive.

He is a foolish man who kept bad company, and is accused of doing bad things. Few people give a fig for him, but millions of us cherish the monarchy. Prince Andrew must not be allowed to bring it to ruin.

Prince Andrew & the Epstein Scandal: The Newsnight Interview - BBC News - 4,840,669 views - 17 Nov 2019

In a Newsnight special, Emily Maitlis interviews the Duke of York as he speaks for the first time about his relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and allegations which have been made against him over his own conduct.

The Duke of York speaks to Emily Maitlis about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and the allegations against him. In a world exclusive interview, Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis speaks to Prince Andrew, the Duke of York at Buckingham Palace. 

For the first time, the Duke addresses in his own words the details of his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who took his own life while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

In 2015, Prince Andrew was named in court papers as part of a US civil case against Epstein. The Prince, who is the Queen’s third child, also answers questions about the allegations made against him by one of Epstein’s victims, and discusses the impact of the scandal on the Royal family and his work.

10 DECEMBER 2021 - CHARITY WATCHDOG INVESTIGATION PRINCE CHARLES'S SCOTTISH VILLAGE - A charity watchdog has launched an investigation into financial transactions used to bail out the Prince of Wales’s struggling eco-village in Scotland. The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) is already examining fundraising practices at the Prince’s Foundation, following allegations that the Prince of Wales' closest former aide co-ordinated with "fixers" over honours nominations for a Saudi billionaire donor.

NOW IS THE TIME FOR CHANGE - Under the present system where the Head of State is a royal, and there is no written constitution, politicians like David Cameron and Boris Johnson can lie with impunity - even to Queen Elizabeth - and not face penalties. Police officers can shoot unarmed civilians and not be sent to prison, and planning officers can deceive the Secretaries of State and High Court judges, and not be prosecuted. In effect, it is alleged that there is little justice in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We aver that such machinations are costing the ordinary taxpayer, Treasury and the Crown (being the state) significant sums of money, while adding to the UK's carbon footprint. Hence, the country is not being run effectively by the at present; defective administration, not to serve its citizens, but to sustain and profit itself. Unlike the US Constitution of 1791 that exists to serve the people.

LINKS & REFERENCE

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/courts/epstein-accuser-takes-legal-action-against-duke-of-york-over-alleged-assault/ar-AAN7T69
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/courts/andrew-s-legal-team-stonewalling-lawyers-of-his-accuser/ar-AAN9XYk
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/courts/prince-andrew-s-legal-team-accused-of-being-totally-uncooperative-over-sexual-assault-allegations/ar-AANalqM
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/sorry-prince-andrew-but-you-can-t-stay-in-balmoral-forever/ar-AANbRpM
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/met-police-to-review-jeffrey-epstein-allegations-amid-prince-andrew-lawsuit/ar-AANeqs9
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/prince-andrew-s-1-5m-loan-paid-off-by-firms-linked-to-tory-donor-report/ar-AAQMCd7?

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/virginia-giuffre-s-lawyer-suggests-calling-meghan-markle-to-testify-in-prince-andrew-case/ar-AAS3f5u

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/celebrity/prince-andrew-told-he-will-face-justice-after-ghislaine-maxwell-verdict/ar-AASi1eJ

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59780323

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/12/31/prince-andrews-accuser-asks-duke-submit-evidence-inability-sweat/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10359545/STEPHEN-GLOVER-Legal-tricks-wont-wash-Prince-Andrew-jeopardising-monarchy.html

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/prince-andrew-accuser-s-secret-500-000-deal-with-jeffrey-epstein-is-unsealed/ar-AASoeQe

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/prince-andrew-accuser-s-secret-500-000-deal-with-jeffrey-epstein-is-unsealed/ar-AASoeQe

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/12/31/prince-andrews-accuser-asks-duke-submit-evidence-inability-sweat/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10359545/STEPHEN-GLOVER-Legal-tricks-wont-wash-Prince-Andrew-jeopardising-monarchy.html

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/celebrity/prince-andrew-told-he-will-face-justice-after-ghislaine-maxwell-verdict/ar-AASi1eJ

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59780323

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/virginia-giuffre-s-lawyer-suggests-calling-meghan-markle-to-testify-in-prince-andrew-case/ar-AAS3f5u

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/courts/epstein-accuser-takes-legal-action-against-duke-of-york-over-alleged-assault/ar-AAN7T69
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/courts/andrew-s-legal-team-stonewalling-lawyers-of-his-accuser/ar-AAN9XYk
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/courts/prince-andrew-s-legal-team-accused-of-being-totally-uncooperative-over-sexual-assault-allegations/ar-AANalqM
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/sorry-prince-andrew-but-you-can-t-stay-in-balmoral-forever/ar-AANbRpM
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/met-police-to-review-jeffrey-epstein-allegations-amid-prince-andrew-lawsuit/ar-AANeqs9
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/prince-andrew-s-1-5m-loan-paid-off-by-firms-linked-to-tory-donor-report/ar-AAQMCd7

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