Another Andrew Accuser Comes Forward

0:01A second woman has accused Andrew over Epstein, Beatrice and Eugenie's horrifying brush with Epstein is revealed and Nicki Minaj. tells Prince Harry to go home. I'm Jack Royston, Newsweek's Chief Royal Correspondent, and this is Newsweek's Royal Report. Hello listeners and welcome to the show. Now it's been a dramatic few days. We've had the Epstein files which have put into the public domain a whole load of new emails which include excruciating details for Andrew. But the other major story of the weekend has been that a A second woman has come forward via her lawyers to bring allegations against Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who obviously formerly was known as Prince Andrew until he had his royal title stripped from him by King Charles in October.

0:49And so her allegations are that she was she was sent to Britain by Epstein, that she spent a night with Andrew at Royal Lodge, his Windsor mansion. She was given a tour, she says, by Buckingham Palace and invited for tea. And she she is threatening to sue Andrew over this, basically. Now, her lawyers have been trying to get hold of Andrew's lawyers, only discover that Andrew doesn't have lawyers anymore, but he's no longer represented. But this comes alongside other material that we've had coming out of the Department of Justice in America. Epstein files disclosures, which include emails around about the same time in 2010.

1:30One email chain, for example, Epstein was trying to introduce Andrew to a 26-year-old Russian girl who he said was clever and beautiful and trustworthy. And an account for the Duke appeared to reply back, you know, brokering this meeting, brokering this dinner. and then another follow-up email talking about inviting Epstein into Buckingham Palace and saying, bring whomever you want. So obviously this is big stuff to come out. It appears to support the notion that part of the nature of the relationship between Andrew and Epstein was about Andrew's access to women. Now Andrew denies all the allegations against him.

2:13He always has. He said to the BBC in 2019 that he had not only not had sex with his original accuser, Virginia Jeffrey, but had not had sex with any woman associated with Epstein. But I have invited onto the show today to talk through all this with me, Graham Smith, who's the chief executive of the anti-monarchy campaign group Republic. People may have recognized their yellow signs at royal engagements. They hold up these big Not My King banners. So, Graham, thank you so much for coming on the show. Hi, Jack. Now, I wanted to have you on for quite a specific reason, which is that obviously, you know, the end game of this, so to speak, if you plot it several moves forwards on the chessboard is potentially very seriously reputationally damaging for King Charles and for the palace.

2:59So tell me what, what is your view on this? I mean, do you, I spoke to you earlier and we were talking about what the kind of public mood and attitude would be like if King Charles did try to fund an out of court settlement? Well, I mean, if Charles were to fund what we believe would be for the second time, he was reportedly, at least in part, funding the 12 million given to Virginia Giffray. If he was to do that again, then I think there would be a huge negative reaction. I mean, I think there was a general concern and frustration and anger in the country about Andrew, about the fact that he is seemingly beyond any kind of serious consequence.

3:42People have said, oh, you know, he's faced or he's lost a lot that is important to him. But, you know, it boils down to being told to use his own name and live in a different big house to the one he was living in before, which is not consequences of any kind that most people would have to deal with in these circumstances. So to bail him out so that he avoids these sorts of questions for a second time, I think, would cause a huge problem for Charles and for the monarchy. But this slightly misses the point because, of course, it shouldn't be a matter of civil lawsuits. It should be a matter of criminal investigation.

4:20But also, it isn't simply a reputational problem for Charles. There are serious questions about what he knew and when. And these questions also apply to William. Now, William has been an adult member, a senior member of the royal family for more than 20 years now. And it is inconceivable that they would not have wanted briefings from whoever had this information before. So they were aware at least of what it is they needed to protect themselves from and what they were trying to defend Andrew from. Now, there is a reason why they have paid out Virginia Geoffrey. There's a reason why they have done everything they could to protect Andrew.

4:57and if they were unaware of all these details it's unlikely they would have taken the same action as they had they would have indeed indeed so obviously it's up to this woman to decide whether she wants to make any kind of criminal complaint in britain but will you be making any contact with the police i know you've done that before you know on other stories where you felt they should investigate will you be writing to the to the cops in britain well we will be for two reasons i mean And I think obviously, you know, these fresh allegations, which we need to digest and have a look at and take some advice on, they are different in the sense that, you know, the excuses that the police have used have in part been a length of time since they happened.

5:37This is much more recent. It will be 15 years ago. The person involved says that she was invited into Andrew's own home. So it wasn't Epstein's home. It was his own home, which was covered in security. There would have been questions of who is this person, who are they visiting and so on at the door, and then invited privately to Buckingham Palace. So, again, a secure area. So there would have been records, there would have been information held about that visit. And the law has changed since between the accusations from Virginia Geoffrey and these accusations. So there should be a different sort of test from the police as to what they can and can't pursue.

6:16Yes, indeed. So just to pause you for a minute there, because that is a complex point. So when Virginia made her allegations relating to a period starting in March 2001, which doesn't to me feel like it was actually that long ago, but clearly it was a huge amount of time that's passed since, because actually sex trafficking laws were in a very kind of retrograde state in Britain at that time. There was something called procuring, which dated back, I mean, at least to the early 20th century, if not before. So in other words, before the era of globalization and modern sex trafficking laws didn't actually start to come into effect in Britain until about 2003 with the Sexual Offences Act.

6:56So in other words, when the police assessed Virginia's allegations against Andrew, they would have been using a kind of a legal framework that has since been updated in relation to the more general offence of sex trafficking. Obviously, they could have applied existing laws about sexual assault and rape, but they would not have had recourse to those broader human trafficking and sex trafficking laws. So that is a really interesting point that actually these allegations, which relate to a woman who says she was in her 20s at the time. So she's not saying she was a minor. But the Sexual Offences Act could potentially be a new lens through which the police examined this case.

7:36Virginia Duffet was over the UK age of consent at the time as well. I mean, it has always been this sort of from those who want to make excuses for Andrew, this is kind of disingenuous. Oh, I know she wasn't a minor. So that's not the issue. The issue is trafficking. The issue is being coerced. And indeed, New York law, if she was under the age of, she was a minor under New York law and actually even. Yeah, she was under 18. Exactly. And even an offence committed outside New York, if tried in New York, New York law would apply. So my understanding from lawyers is that actually the point about her being 17 and the UK age of consent being 16 instantly falls away if Andrew were being tried in New York.

8:15Yes, but also the laws in this country, which is that if you are a British citizen, you commit a sexual offence overseas, that can be prosecuted in the UK, which raises questions about what happened on Epstein's Island and what happened in New York as well. So, but I mean, you know, I think the police have been rather disingenuous. You know, I've said that they use excuses about how long ago it was and so on because they have prosecuted successfully abuse cases going back 40 years. um there's been a whole load of cases around you know things like operation u-tree celebrities and um so on um and they've managed to pursue those and even where they haven't secured a conviction they've still managed to get as far as court um and they pursued it vigorously with andrew they've made it literally no effort other than just a brief sort of review and said i know nothing to see here we're not going to pursue it which is an absolutely uh disgraceful response to this constant slew of allegations, evidence, further allegations and so on.

9:16The police's position is going to become untenable. Now, the question is, I mean, so far, the government and the police and everybody around and the monarchy and the royalties have all essentially just stuck their heads in the sand and said, you know, we're not going to respond and we're not going to engage. Now, they could theoretically carry on doing that. And there's very little that anybody could do other than what Republic is now doing, which is seeking to pursue a private prosecution. And this is the other reason why we're reporting the matter to the police, because there are other matters that we want to report to the police.

9:49The other allegations that came out of Andrew Lowney's book late last year about his conduct as a trade ambassador. So we need to. Which are financial predominantly. Yeah, to do with his using that role, allegedly, to pursue his own business interests and so on. But we need to put these to the police and then say, when the police ignore them, then we've got grounds to go and say, well, if you're not going to pursue this, then we will seek to do so, which is a complicated and expensive and slow process. But, you know, all of the whole establishment, if you like, for want of a better word, is forcing the public to make that choice.

10:30Do we want to just really allow this to carry on? Or are members of the public going to start funding a private prosecution and trying to pursue it that way? But I think that, you know, these allegations will keep on coming. I wouldn't be surprised if there are further allegations from other people. And I would suggest that, you know, it is going to reach a point where it's untended. And so just to pause you again, sorry to keep interrupting. I just want to slow you down a little bit. So just for our audience. So when you talk about a private prosecution, are you talking there about a private criminal prosecution or suing him in civil court?

11:01There's a criminal prosecution. So anybody can go to court and apply to a mattress case court and say, look, I want to take on the role of prosecutor. So we have instructed lawyers, we're going to announce this week who they are and get more detail out. But they would then do the investigating, the job that the police should be doing. and if they can build a case that stands a chance of succeeding in a criminal court, they can apply it to a matter of space and say that we want to then take on the role of the CPS. So we would then be the prosecutors. And, you know, it's fundamentally important that this is done, that, you know, someone needs to say, handle that, we've done everything we can to investigate this, we've gathered all the information available and here's the result.

11:41Here's, you know, either it stands up to, you know, it gets over that bar of being able to go to court or it doesn't and if it does then it goes to court and we can see all the evidence in a open court and see what's going on but the current situation is simply untenable and as i said you know william and child's both been heckled recently it's going to happen again you know people are asking them what did you know and that question i've seen a lot more recently over the weekend from on from commentators of all stripes and uh you know political persuasions on social media saying well what did they know?

12:14How much have they been covering up? Because they're simply not credible to think that they didn't know anything about this and yet they have gone out of their way to protect Andrew in order to protect themselves. Because of course there were emails between I think Epstein and Maxwell and Andrew's household staff as you know the kind of actual palace staff about the financial aspects because of course Fergie had massive loans, massive debts rather that she needed to pay off and Epstein helped her to pay those off and so Epstein was coordinating with Andrew's private secretary at the time um so now that deals with the financial aspect rather than the sex allegations but needless to say the palace were involved in the relationship but this raises a whole load of um questions of conflicts of interest people being beholden to other people of questionable character and so on and it simply isn't credible to believe that the the staff around William and Charles weren't aware of this, they weren't engaging with that directly.

13:10I don't know to what extent Andrew's staff overlaps with the other palace staff, but they would have had to have known, they would have wanted to have known in order to check that Charles and William were going to be dragged into something which they couldn't extricate themselves from, but so they knew what it was they were defending themselves against. And as I said, the Queen, the late Queen and Charles and William would have known this and what their whole pattern of behavior has been, on the one hand, silence, and on the other hand, protecting Andrew as much as they can. Every step of the way, they've always done the very minimum that they had to do.

13:48So they announced back in 2011, you know, he's not going to be the trade ambassador. He carried on after that, going around the world on the public ticket. He, later on after the news night interview, some things were taken away from him, but he remained a public figure. He still was still Prince, still Duke, and all the rest of it. And then when it was looking like it was going to court in the United States with Virginia Trifray's case, then they took further action, and then they took further action. You know, it's always just the absolute minimum, until late last year when they realized they had to pull the trigger and then really sort of remove as much as they could.

14:28But what they're learning today, over the weekend, is that that wasn't enough either, you know, that people don't, they're not interested in their titles and whether they're a duke or prince or whatever. What they want is to know that people face justice, no matter who they are, no matter how powerful they are, no matter who their family is. Yeah, so tell me, your membership, has it been growing? Has it been staying level? Has it been shrinking? And how big an issue is, Andrew, for your members? Well, our supporters base has been steadily growing for some time. But, I mean, we launched this crowdfunder, which very quickly raised over£20 ,000.

15:04We need to sort of double that over the next couple of months. We need to keep on talking about this because I think there are a lot of people who are relatively indifferent to the whole issue, but they find this kind of stuff really difficult to tolerate. And the more it drags out, the more it's starting to stick to the other worlds. And so they are thinking, well, you know, this is not something which we can live with anymore. I think for a lot of it, I mean, the big factor is that the Queen was largely untouchable for a lot of people. But now she's not there. People are much more willing to talk not only about what the other royals knew and how it affects them on what their role was, but are now starting to criticize the Queen as well.

15:45So the whole mood has changed. And, you know, regardless of our membership and our role in this, I think the public attitude is changing quite quickly. quite quickly and we will start to i mean there already has been a sharp decline in support for the monarchy over recent years we did commission a poll with savanta in uh november i think it was um most people thought that the queen did too much to uh protect andrew most people thought that the royals should come clean about what they knew when you know most people thought that what had happened wasn't enough in terms of um uh accountability for andrew um and support for the monarchy was dipped below 50 % for the, I think, third time in two years.

16:27So, you know, it is clearly having a significant impact. Yeah, indeed. So final point. So we talked about the scenario where Charles bails out, Andrew, and I think you told me previously that you would want Charles to step down under that scenario like you might expect of a minister. So I've put this to a couple of other people just to get kind of a counter argument. So I just want to put some of their points to you to give you an opportunity to explain or to come back on them. So one argument was, which you have dealt with, to be fair, was Virginia was over the age of consent. The latest woman is over the age of consent.

17:06Calling for abdication is just a gimmick, basically. And the current case won't make it to court. That was one. That was from Dickie Arbiter, who obviously you'll know was a press secretary to Queen Elizabeth II. I mean, I think Dickie Arbiter, to be a perfect honest, I mean, he would have to witness Andrew shooting someone dead in the street in order for him to actually turn on the royals. I mean, he used to work there. He would always defend them. And again, I find this defense on the grounds of how the women were pretty obnoxious. I think the point about whether or not Charles remains monarch in the event that he bails out Andrew is simply that my rule of thumb is always treat them as you would politicians.

17:48if there was a minister that had in 2011 been accused of the things that Andrew was accused of and had then followed up you know with countless other accusations they would have been gone years ago now if that minister um was in fact bailing out someone else in order for that person public figure to avoid um uh their day in court again i think that there's serious questions would be asked about why um you know this is not small change no even if it's 10 million pounds you know yes it might be small change for the billionaire charles but it is you know big money and so why is he doing that you know and it would leave an awful stain on charles's reputation now this is goes back obviously i mean i don't want the moniker there at all um but this is one of the reasons why because if you have someone who is in public office and they do this kind of thing they behave like this there should be a very simple clean mechanism for getting rid of them and then a very simple clean mechanism for replacing them and we don't have that with the monarchy if he chooses not to go there is nothing that we can done to get rid of him apart from get rid of the monarchy now some people say oh you know there's the abdication and all the rest of there was another lifetime another world um parliament is going to be very reluctant to do anything like that but of course william has also got questions to um answer so they are running out the road and running out of oils really that you know there's no clean skins in any of this they're all uh affected in one way or the other we even saw quotes from ann apparently suggesting that um that andrew is being harshly treated or unfairly treated because they live in a world where of so much um entitlement um that they think everybody else is beneath them and they don't owe excuse explanations they don't owe us the same sorts of standards um or expectations that everyone else does.

19:37And so, and this will be reflected as it was when the Queen Charles bailed out Andrew with that payment of Virginia Jeffrey. I think it is just about, look, make this go away. Justice doesn't matter. The victims aren't at the centre of this. What we want is for this to go away in order to protect us. Indeed, Graham, thank you so much for joining me. It's been wonderful having you on. Thank you. So, like I said, that new allegation is probably the most dramatic thing to come out on a weekend that was full of absolute bombshells. And so I'm going to talk through some of those emails. But first of all, I want to read the line that the woman's lawyer, Brad Edwards, gave to the BBC.

20:17And so he said, we're talking about at least one woman. So he's not actually closed it down to being this one additional alleged victim. At least one woman who was sent by Jeffrey Epstein over to Prince Andrew. And she even had, after a night with Prince Andrew, a tour of Buckingham Palace. Now, he said that she had tea during this tour. But also, crucially, you know, there was the overnight stay and a section encounter at Andrew's home Royal Lodge in 2010. But in the run up, in the build up to that, the organisation of that, Edward says that there was email contact between Andrew and his clients before they met in person.

20:56So he is presumably sitting on that email and knows what it says. Now that obviously should be a huge concern to the palace. I should say, of course, that Andrew has always denied any sexual activity with any woman linked to Epstein. So he denied Virginia's allegations, but in his BBC interview, you know, obviously he didn't know that this woman was going to come forwards at that time, but he was asked, could you have had any sexual relations with any woman linked to Epstein? He said no. Obviously, some of the email material that's come forward in the interim might cause some people to raise an eyebrow at that.

21:31But obviously, make your own minds up. And who knows whether we might get a comment from Andrew at some point. So interesting things about this email. One, about this incident rather. One, 2010 was after Epstein's conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution. So this is not a kind of a trial and conviction for all of the allegations against him. This was the heavily criticised plea deal that he struck in Florida, which saw him spend some of his sentence under house arrest. By 2010, not only had he pleaded guilty, but he had also served his sentence. And this was for soliciting prostitution from a minor who was a 14 year old girl.

22:13now interesting to keep that new allegation in mind as we go through some of the emails that came out in the epstein files so again some of them are from 2010 i mentioned these emails from the duke of york who signed off a it doesn't you know we don't know uh for definite 100 percent that it's andrew but this is the same email account that has had biographical information that matches Andrew in the past. So Epstein writes, I have a friend who I think you might enjoy having dinner with. This is in August of 2010. The Duke replies, of course, I'm in Geneva until the morning of the 22nd, but would be delighted to see her.

22:54Will she bring a message from you? Please give her my contact details to get in touch. And then Epstein writes back, she's 26 Russian clever beautiful trustworthy interesting word and yes she has your email Epstein wrote so you know trustworthy there obviously this is a bit of a trend now we have a few of these past emails where there are references to people being reliable and trustworthy and you know you're not going to get stabbed in the back basically then a month later in September there's another group of emails, presumably about a different meeting. Who knows? I suppose perhaps it could be the same one delayed.

23:33We don't know for sure. But this is Epstein talking about having dinner with Andrew and they're talking about where to do it, to go to a restaurant or whatever. And then the Duke suggests that we could have dinner at Buckingham Palace and lots of privacy. Delighted for you, a later email, delighted for you to come to BP, that's Buckingham Palace, come with whomever and I'll be here free from 4pm to 8pm. And Epstein replied, see you at 4pm. Now, one interesting thing is whether there is any overlap between these email chains and this new allegation. The details of the new allegation do seem strikingly similar to that August 2010 exchange.

24:12The details in the new allegation do seem strikingly similar to that August 2010 exchange. Now, I don't know. I've asked and I've not yet had an answer, but we don't actually know whether it's the same instant or not. It might not be. Needless to say, though, all a full nine years after Virginia's allegations. So that is, it's fascinating stuff. And also, you know, in response to that set of August emails, Andrew seemed to acknowledge that he knew that Epstein had been convicted. By that point, he wrote an email which said, how are you good to be free? So obviously Epstein had just finished his sentence, his prison sentence, in fact, house arrest.

24:51So the reference of being good to be free presumably meant that you're no longer under house arrest. Epstein replied, good to be free from all sorts of things. So, you know, this is obviously a developing situation. Another reputational aspect to it is that if this case gets off the ground and, you know, this new woman files a lawsuit, if she has grounds to, if she can make it work with human trafficking laws as they exist, then her lawyers will have to serve papers to Andrew, physically serve them to Andrew. And Andrew will be living either where he is now, which is Royal Lodge in Windsor, or on the Sandringham Estate, where he'll be shielded under the umbrella police protection given to a major royal residence, a privately owned royal residence, but a major royal residence nonetheless.

25:36And so if there's a situation developed where Andrew is effectively hiding behind that security that is provided for the monarchy, then that could be another total reputational bin fire for King Charles and for the crown. Now, right now, as of this moment, Charles' decision back in October to strip Andrew of his prince title, strip him of his Duke of York title, it all seems to be holding. The public are not in uproar at Charles yet. But I would say that this case probably has a bigger chance than anything else to actually bring this crisis back to King Charles' door. exactly how the public will react and whether it will start to harm Charles domestically.

26:19We will have to wait and see. And on that note, I'm going to take a quick break. But just a reminder to rate and review The Royal Report on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your favourite shows. And when I'm back, Beatrice and Eugenie have actually become one of the more unsettling new aspects of the Epstein files, at least as far as they relate to the royal family.

26:47Now, the poisonous cloud of the Epstein scandal has been engulfing Andrew for the best part of 15 years. Over the past months, it started engulfing Sarah Ferguson too. Now, though, it appears to be spreading even further to Andrew and Fergie's children, Beatrice and Eugenie. Now, some news organisations in Britain are even going as far as to start to try to pin some of the blame on Beatrice and Eugenie. And for me, that probably goes a little bit too far. But some of the new Epstein emails have been profoundly chilling in terms of the way in which Andrew and actually Fergie to a significant extent were willing to expose their own children to Epstein.

27:27Now, obviously, Andrew has always denied wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. He has said that he never had sex with Virginia Jiffre, who accused him of raping her when she was a 17-year-old trafficking victim. He also said to the BBC in 2019 he has never had sex with any woman connected to Epstein, and he has denied knowing about Epstein's federal crimes. So no doubt Andrew and Fergie would both, if they were here, say they had no idea what was going on with Epstein. But at least in Andrew's case, that's becoming increasingly difficult to believe because we now have these emails that were sent between Andrew and Epstein talking about introducing Andrew to a 26-year-old Russian, beautiful Russian woman who was trustworthy.