The Queen of England has ‘sacked’ Prince Andrew from royal duties after discussing the crisis with Prince Charles and summoning her distraught ‘favourite son’ to Buckingham Palace to learn his fate.
The Duke of York is today being urged to fly to America to speak to the FBI with lawyers for Jeffrey Epstein’s victims warning him ‘any delay’ must lead to US agents heading to London to interview him before Christmas.
Attorney Lisa Bloom, who represents five of Epstein’s ‘slaves’, has said she is ready to subpoena Andrew and force him to give evidence in the US – but prosecutors would treat him as a witness to help prosecute Epstein’s ‘helpers’ and co-conspirators rather than a criminal suspect.
Ms Bloom said: ‘Andrew and his staff must cooperate with all investigations, show up for civil depositions and trials, and produce all documents. Nobody is above the law and everybody should have to answer questions’.
The Queen took decisive action against her second son last night in a desperate bid to contain the fall-out from the duke’s disastrous Newsnight interview about his years of friendship with the paedophile.
Andrew will lose his £249,000 annual income from the Sovereign Grant as a result – but will keep his grace-and-favour home in Windsor and cash will still come in from his mother’s Duchy of Lancaster estate, the source of her multi-million pound private income.
The Duke wanted to speak to the BBC but he was skewered by Emily Maitlis. The misjudgment triggered days of catastrophic headlines and caused a string of businesses and charities to desert him, with experts calling it the biggest crisis to grip the royal family for decades.
Royal expert Penny Junor said: ‘I would think the Queen is horrified – it’s been a disastrous year’ and biographer Ingrid Seward, Editor in Chief of Majesty Magazine, said: ‘I have never known anything like this in living memory’.
Andrew has been pilloried for his TV performance because of a lack of contrition for his friendship with the paedophile and his failure to express sympathy for the dozens of women Epstein trafficked and abused over three decades.
His alibis for not having sex with Virginia Roberts three times including being in Ascot’s Pizza Express have also been widely ridiculed by the public. And now his claim he was with Britain’s consul general in New York when Ms Roberts said they slept together in 2001 became at odds with the diplomat in question, Sir Thomas Harris, who said last night: ‘I don’t recall him staying with me’.
As it is, Andrew was effectively retired by the royal family aged 59, it has emerged.