The Queen’s son’s inadequate responses to serious sexual allegations are doing reputational damage to Britain
There should be no disputing that, if they are true, the sexual abuse allegations made by Virginia Giuffre against Prince Andrew, the Queen’s second son, are serious. Nor can there be any denying that the seriousness, if it is established, would be both personal and also more widely political.
Ms Giuffre alleges that Prince Andrew had sex with her in London in 2001 when she was 17, and was thus still a minor under US (though not English) law, and that the prince knew she had been trafficked by his friend, the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Ms Giuffre also claims that Epstein paid her $15,000 for the encounter.
