Tom Pride here links to the American court documents detailing the allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation against Prince Andrew’s friend, Epstein. Most of the documents are simply descriptions of the actions of Epstein himself. It merely mentions Andrew as one of the prominent men, including politicians, prime ministers and other leading figures, to whom Epstein loaned the girls for abuse. Please be advised that these documents make very grim and disgusting reading, as they give explicit descriptions of what Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell did to them.
There are a number of aspects to this case, which need commenting on. Firstly, if you can believe Private Eye, this isn’t the first time members of the royal family have been habitués of the sex industry. Way back in the 1990s, the magazine in its ‘Hello’ column, which spoofed the gossip columns in the Express and particularly Nigel Dempster’s in the Daily Mail, suggested that Prince Philip enjoyed the pleasures of strip clubs. It ran an article in which they went off to ‘Theatreland’ with Zorba the Scot to see various young ladies perform ‘Just a Thong at Twilight’. Now it should be mentioned here that although this is scandalous, strip clubs were and are quite legal, if sordid. Peter Cook himself, the magazine’s proprietor, was known to frequent them. Indeed, in one of his stories he joked about being thrown out of one in Times Square by Italian gangsters after taking a wrong turn and walked in on the girl herself in the middle of a peepshow. It does not, however, mean that someone also used prostitutes. Certainly to my knowledge no-one has ever made that allegation against Cook. I suspect that if Cook had, those newspapers owned by the many targets of Cook’s satire, like Maxwell’s Mirror, would have blazoned it all over their front page in order to discredit the great satirist.
More seriously, in the ‘Court Circular’ column in today’s Private Eye for the 9th -22nd January 2015, p. 13, is a piece about the domineering behaviour of Prince Charles’ PR, Mark Bolland, and his former valet, Michael Fawcett and the grip they held on Charles and his household and personal staff, and the role they played in having the documentary, Reinventing the Royals, pulled from broadcasting. The article states that amongst other scandals surrounding Charles, a former footman, George Smith, made a tape in which he claimed to have since the future king in bed with a male aide, and that Smith himself had been raped by a senior servant. It shouldn’t need to be said that as homosexuality is legal, it should be nobody’s business but his own, who the Prince sleeps with, providing it’s a consenting adult. What is worrying is the allegation that a highly placed servant could rape someone with apparent impunity. One of the official documents, whose publication has been suppressed and which will only become public later in this century includes allegations of paedophilia against a member of the royal household. This does seem to point to a culture of sexual exploitation and violence within part of the royal household.
Secondly, the fact that the British public is hearing about the allegations made about Prince Andrew indicates that something has profoundly changed in the way the monarchy can handle and suppress awkward or embarrassing news since the 1990s. I was talking to a friend a little while ago, who told me that when he was at Uni the story broke that a number of women had come forward in America claiming that Lugs was the father of their children. The story was firmly kept out of the British press, and he only found out about it because one of the lecturers had relatives in the Land of the Free, who had written to them about the scandal. My guess is that monarchy’s inability to suppress this story may partly be due to the rise of internet. With ordinary people across the world able to get news and talk to people continents away, national governments are not as able to suppress unwelcome news or information as they could, even in the recent past.
Part of the monarchy’s inability to suppress the story may also come from the primacy of American law governing American citizens overseas. Under international treaty, American law still governs American citizens, even when they are overseas. A person may still be convicted of an offence under American law, even if what they have done is not illegal in the country in which the alleged offence was committed. This was, I understand, the basis of the case the Americans made for the extradition of the young man with Asberger’s, who hacked into Norad or the other major defence computer looking for evidence of secret American contact with aliens. The plaintiffs in this case are Americans, and so under the same piece of legislation American law is still valid in this case. One of the plaintiffs was seventeen at the time she was allegedly assaulted by Prince Andrew. Although she was above the age of consent – 16, under British law – she was still a minor under Florida law. Thus, under American law, Prince Andrew allegedly had sex with a minor, for which it is possible he may prosecuted under international legal obligations.
At this stage, it needs to be pointed out that it is not clear if Andrew is guilty of the alleged offences. Human memory is fallible, and people can and have made all kinds of false allegations against prominent people, for a variety of reasons. I can remember the gossip surrounding the allegation by Woody Allen’s former wife, Mia Farrow, about how Allen had sexually abused their daughter. The rumour was that Farrow had been encouraged to make the allegation by her lawyer, in order to reinforce her own claims against the director and screenwriter. It is possible that the same may be true here.
There is also the danger that if the Prince is guilty, his lawyers may try to stall or interfere with the conduct of a trial on the grounds that the publicity given to the story by the media has produced a future jury, thus preventing the Prince receiving a fair trial. I therefore think we should be careful how this and similar stories are reported and discussed, in order to make sure that just is done, and that the Prince, if he is guilty, doesn’t walk away unpunished.
What is needed in this case is complete openness, so that’s very clear just what, if any, the Prince’s role in this whole squalid and vicious tale is. I don’t see that happening, unfortunately. Epstein’s lawyers tried to keep this story under wraps under the plea bargain deal they made with the US authorities, and I can see the British state attempting to do some kind of deal to protect the honour and reputation of the monarchy.
(not satire)
(warning – these statements are disturbing)
In the interests of openness, here is the court document from the US which names Prince Andrew:
And this court document from the same case shows that the girls involved in the allegations were sometimes as young as 12 years old:
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