UKC

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60393843

No details of the settlement yet.

Phew, that was agreed easily, no sweat!

I doubt she'll need to work again 😂

You have to feel sorry for him.

Er no, actually you don't. 

If I was innocent, with my reputation in shreds, and with his resources at my disposal I would be skipping all the way to the US to legally tear her and her team new arses. 

Or I'm a fiddling fiddler and would sooner, with access to similar resources,  not have my reputation shredded still further and buy myself an NDA and platitudes and slink off for the rest of my life in luxurious anonymity.

I'm not a legal expert though.

I think UKC's legal experts thought a settlement was the likely outcome.

There's some details there now at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60393843 

They did.

The claimant's lawyer hopping into print to say that under no circumstances will they settle without a public admission of liability is generally a sure sign that the case will shortly be settled for a large sum of money without, of course, any public admission of liability.

To be fair, you would do that in Andrew's position whatever the truth. Getting cross-examined about this could never be anything but excruciating and expensive, and you are depending upon a New York jury to prefer your account of events to another person;s.

jcm

The worst thing is that we the public will have paid for him to buy his way out of this

Admission of guilt on his part together with an offer she couldn't refuse

Knew this would never get to court.

Not that I'm a legal expert, but I saw one on the telly and he said "this will never get to court".

Given how well he did with that newsnight interview I cant see why his advisers would have any concerns at all.

Of course there was no sweat! Andrew doesn't sweat.

It was never about the money. It was all about justice.....

Given the circumstances, pressure and nature of the questions, I though he came over pretty well in the interview and I was quite surprised afterwards to find that the consensus was that it was a disaster. Ok, he might have been lying through his teeth, but, if so, he did so with some panache.

Years of practice? 

Once again money talks. 

Disappointing.

Or more like money doesn't talk.

I wondered where the phrase "silence is golden" came from. I understand now 

I was under the impression Virginia Giuffre wanted her day in court ??

Really? Seriously?

Do you remember the bit where he said of his little New York holiday with a convicted sex offender;

“I admit fully my judgment was probably coloured by my tendency to be too honourable but that’s just the way it is.”

”I’m just too honourable” FFS. What a tw*t.

Really?  I would have thought he'd have been bailed out by the Royals' considerable private funds not bankrolled by the public?  No axe to grind just curious!

He’s done it to “apologise for his association with Epstein”…

I mean a lot of people were associated with Epstein… wonder what it is that sets him apart that he needs to pay her money?

What could it possibly be????

A question has to be ... Are there any more of Andrew Windsor's victims who might now be tempted to file charges? 

He totally convinced me of his innocence when he outfoxed Maitlis with the powerful point that a party he threw for Maxwell was actually nothing more than a 'straightforward shooting weekend'

I'll take that as an admission of guilt. 

I am sure that, if you go to enough shooting parties, then some seem like straightforward ones. probably no different really from having a straightforward day's winter climbing.

Yes

Does this mean that he is still regarded as a (non-sweating, but probably pretty sweaty) nonce - or is he likely to be "brought back into the family"?

And in the latest news, the royals will hold an end-of-affair party in Pizza Express in Woking

Anyone else in the queue outside buckingham palace?

https://newsthump.com/2022/02/15/huge-queue-forms-at-palace-on-news-that-pr...

I always took you for an intelligent guy. I mean, there are your everyday car crashes, multiple pile-ups in fog on the M6, coaches of children driven by nuns plunging off Balkan precipices, and then there's the Andrew interview.

The unmentioned crime here is that the vast settlement is public money.

How many of society's problems could have been relieved by it? 

Actually No. I hear he's denied it's settled out of court

He said he had no memory of a settlement and it couldn't be him as he remembers he must have been somewhere else. Since the Falklands, as he was under such stress at the time it affected him greatly and he's never been able to settle court cases since. It couldn't possibly be him and he was at a children's birthday party at that time anyway

Who hasn't paid a fortune to somebody they never met for a shag that never happened? 

What makes you say that? It may be public money in the sense that PA has been a public employee for a long time, but it’s now his money.

jcm

His civil list earnings plus his and his families accrued wealth which originated from the country.

Good dole cheque if you are a Sax - Cohberg.

Disappointing, maybe we wouldn't have ended up with any more certain idea about what actually happened if it had gone to court, but we're now going to miss a whole load of drama, not to mention all the pundits, analysts and commentators who were looking forward to the gravy train of extraneous rubbish that would have been generated by the court case.

and the film.

This other massage therapist coming out and saying he was a creepy sex pest won't have helped the confidence of his legal team.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/prince-andrew-royal-massage...

The guy was scared of what would come out during discovery and needing to fly to the US for depositions or trial and putting himself at risk of arrest. So mummy has found $10 million to make it go away.

As well as claiming to not be able to sweat, when there's no medically recognised condition along those lines (as least not due to serving in combat).

And dont forget he seems to have no medical or other records about it.

Which seems somewhat odd especially given an inability to sweat would put him at high risk of heat stroke etc and so be something his protection officers would really need to know about.

He had nothing meaningful to say to any victims of abuse, too. Hey ho, it's best not to get irked at a doofus I guess.

Absolutely!

I reckon you’re about right on the money there with the amount… Surely must be around that?  Saw legal experts saying it could be at least that if not more had he lost in court..

Have you been looking through my internet dating history? 

That's a very good point. As my limited veterinary knowledge goes, the family canidae, or canids (dogs) are also unable to sweat, in a homo sapien way at least. Thus, when the temps get above the comfortable 25oC, surely his royal lowness gets a bit panty to compensate for his military-created deficiency that our furry sidekicks have developed over millenia. 

So, all I ask is, when it gets hot, does Andy pant?

<tumbleweed> That was sort of the OP's point? </deewelbmut>

Panache

noun [ U ]

UK  /pəˈnæʃ/ US  /pəˈnæʃ/

a stylish, original, and very confident way of doing things that makes people admire you.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/panache

FYI

Pretty much the same except in a mansion on someone's private estate with hookers and cocaine  and Range Rovers to take you to where the ghillies have found some animals for you to shoot. And after a 5 course dinner dinner you fix up some dodgy arms deal or PPE contract.

Ignoring his mother funding his (and by proxy, her) legal woes, how on earth has he been funding his lavish lifestyle of the years?  Around 250k seems like a lot (and to most of us, is), but when you peer into his grubby (yet expensive) lifestyle, it feels like no-where near enough.

Wonder if HMRC is looking at him, or does the HM bit in this acronym preclude him from such scrutiny. 

We're all "understanding" why (don't use it in pubic) HRH Prince Andrew has sidestepped a court appearance, but why has Ms Guiffre accepted a settlement rather than have her day in court which she loudly claimed to want.

Presumably her legal team thought there was a significant chance of losing.

Considering the circles he moves in there is always the possibility that she received advice to jus take the money and leave it be.

Guilty as sin, hopefully some great misfortune befalls him as befits everyone who abuses children and is allowed to roam freely. 

Reporting is that 99% of US civil cases are settled without going to court so I assume she (and PA) knew that from lawyers.

Loud claims of willingness to go to court was successful negotiation by applying pressure. You can hardly negotiate saying "I want a settlement but I want to inform you I am not prepared to take this to court if I don't get what I want".

I don't see how this helps stop the abuse of the less powerful by rich and famous people, in fact it shows the obverse, in that if it comes down to it, you can always buy your way out of it.

Most posters on this thread seem to be more interested in a bit of Royal bashing than in the plight of a young person being sexually exploited by the rich and famous.

No one comes out of this looking good.

Perhaps the thought of becoming extremely rich, and helping other victims of abuse though her charity, became more enticing than that of standing in court recanting the harrowing details of her sexual abuse and rape and seeing the details as headlines in the worlds press.

Can’t say I blame her.

Yes, I know it's good fun to joke about it, but it is obviously a fact that some shooting parties will be ordinary and some will be special (just like some birthday parties or any other kind of party or event people might attend). I think the fact that so much has been made of his "ordinary shooting party" comment really says a lot more about the frenzied desire to see the downfall of somebody in his privileged position rather than anything about his actual possible guilt.

My understanding is if she continued the case, unless she was awarded more than PA was offering to settle, she would have to cover his legal costs, which is going to be quite a risk to take.

Yes, that sounds about right. If he was lying then one has, in a way, to hand it to him; he did it with stylish and brazen confidence.

Yes, and I imagine his legal team also thought there was a significant chance of losing.

With both sides having a huge amount to lose and really not being able to afford to lose, I don't think there was any chance of a trial ever happening.

In fact it is a bit like indyref2.

It was a civil case so it was always only going to come down to the money.

No, more like a very publicly botched attempt at parallel parking if anything.

Actual possible guilt?

Surely any notion that he may not have done what Virginia Guiffre said he did can now be discounted?

Or should I sue him as well? I’ve never met him either…

Jesus, you’re easy to impress.

You want to get yourself down to your local Spoons as I’m sure you’ll find it a glittering playground of the glib, the witty and the debonair 😂

Well now we are never going to know. Obviously.

Was it?

When Denis Clair declined to settle out of court with David Goodwillie, she was  apparently aware it would mean that she would not see financial compensation, but she chose this course, so she got the man who she says raped her into court, https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/david-goodwillie-case-evidence/ , and three judges agreed that they thought that in all probability she had been raped. 
So it does not always have to come down to money.

We will never know, but anyone associating themselves with Epstein and Maxwell is not imho deserving of the benefit of the doubt.

It's being reported that the entire settlement will go to her charity supporting victims. Presumably that's after costs though. Is there any report she will personally gain any money?

Really?  Has that changed from yesterday?  All the reports I read said that there was to be a payment to Ms Giuffre and make a substantial donation to her charity. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60397947

In fact this one is from this morning and it's still making it clear it's two payments https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/prince-andrew-virginia-gi...

I think you might have read it wrong?

Frankly I'm aghast anyone thinks there's any doubt in the matter.  Believe what you want but him paying her a settlement sum of that magnitude tells me all I need to know.

The newspapers are speculating she got north of $10 million.

Whether she is in it for the money or not her lawyers are in it for a cut on the settlement.  Even if they are fairly sure they are going to win they aren't going to be certain of the damages that will be awarded. 

If someone offers them more than they can be sure of getting in damages because it is worth extra to them to resolve it without going to trial the lawyers are going to want to grab it.

No way the British public will accept this. They'll be on the first train to protest in London outside Buckingham Palace tomorrow..................... oh, hold on a minute......

E

Cheers.... the wording of some news reports seemed too vague to me so I checked a few others and worked it out just before I read your post. Always use multiple news sources!

I wouldn't say it was stylish but can see some might admire that kind of bluster. Confident yes - but would you expect otherwise? He had time, resources and support to prepare for this interview and it used to trot out some laughable counter-evidence.

Maitlis: she said she met you in 2001. She dined with you. She danced with you. You bought her drinks. You were in Tramp night club in London. And she went on to have sex with you in a house in Belgravia, owned by Ghislaine Maxwell.

She described dancing with you and you profusely sweating

Prince Andrew.

'I don't know where the bar is in Tramps nightclub'

'I don't drink'

'I was at a Pizza Express in Woking during the afternoon'

'I have a peculiar medical condition which means I don't sweat........ It was almost impossible for me to sweat'

………………….…to doff their f*cking caps.

Yes agreed, I read a few reports yesterday that were a bit hazy on this.  Got the impression that the journos had scrambled to get something out quickly before they had a full understanding of whether the payment was to her or/and the charity.

Guess that's an issue in the digital age, the scramble to get the story published online doesn't give journos much as much opportunity to understand the story as print.

My bet:

Andrew pays the settlement himself by selling his ski chalet and borrowing from some other dodgy friend.

We are all told Andrew paid himself and it wasn't the queen or public money.

Andrew is now skint and in debt.

His mum quietly gives him money or a free palace to live in.

Most people don't realise/care that the end result is the exact same as if she'd paid the settlement i.e. the settlement is paid and Andrew isn't skint.

Absolutely.

There may be a few people here who have more means than they realise, and who are all too quick to shit on societies poorest people with little or no regard for how disadvantaged their start was in life, and yet have some form of sympathy for Andrew and his 'not-proven' charge.

To point at the girls settlement as indication that she was a liar after money, and to disregard the statements the Princes lawyers had to say on his behalf in support of the victim (with a donation to a victims charity), just makes you the worst in society, and lower than the lowest dole scrubbing soap dodger out there. I hope you feel proud (you know who you are).

I've never seen a more guilty person the than the United Kingdom's Prince Andrew, son of Queen Elizabeth (don't the parents share some of the blame for the way he turned out?)  

Agreed.  In fact at the time when the story about him selling his ski chalet was rather widely reported I did wonder if that was a leaked deliberately in advance so that the public would feel that he's paid his settlement out of his own pocket.

Of course my questions would be whose money he bought the chalet with in the first place?!

There is apparently a hefty mortgage on the chalet, so he won't actually see very much cash as a result of the sale. 

Indeed. What a shame. 

It will be interesting to see what happens when the queen dies. He is known to be the queen's favourite son, while Charles and William are not well-disposed to towards him, and may not be as forthcoming with financial support. I rather like the idea of him living off his navy pension. 

That response must the top of the list of replies to show how far out of touch you are with the average person.

Dave

The settlement must be truely absolutely, bloody massive, his mum has been forced to increase the cost of Lochnagar parking by 66%.

She must all be skint yet Republic calculate that the Royal Family take £350,000,000 a year from hard working folks, can’t be right, can it ?

Hopefully, a 66% uplift to our burden won’t be imposed to pay for the boy ?

I took it as sarcasm and going by the number of likes I suspect many others did too.

There is certainly no doubt that his judgement in choosing his company was absolutely dreadful. I certainly wouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt (far from it) but nor would I assume him to be guilty.

Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler were never found guilty either!

So they're alright in your book too then?

As others have said, possibly to avoid the humiliation of being dragged through the mud at trial (and, whatever the outcome of the trial, there would have been a lot of mud to be dragged through). And to avoid this distracting embarrassingly from his mother's jubilee perhaps. I am sure we can all think of things in our private lives which, though not necessarily unlawful, we would be prepared to pay a bit (proportionately to our means) not to become public knowledge, let alone subject to a media feeding frenzy.

Of course, as you say, the other possibility is, of course, that he is guilty and knows that evidence of his guilt would have come out.

Yes - that's right. Meant to be sarcastic!

Well Saddam was found guilty and hung for his crimes. I strongly suspect that Hitler would have been too but for his suicide.

I didn't say Andrew was "alright" (at the very least he has shown absolutely terrible judgment). I just don't think his guilt should be presumed when he has not been tried and found guilty (though, if I had to put money on it, I would, on balance, put it on him being guilty).

I'm sorry but for me it's beyond the realms of possibility that he never met Ms Giuffre as he claims. 

He and his lawyers would be aware that this payment, particularly given the magnitude, would make him look guilty (in many people's eyes), cause him serious financial difficulty, and bar him from ever returning to public life and you just don't do that for no reason, for someone you never met.

If somebody I had never met claimed I'd sexually assaulted them they wouldn't get a red cent out of me and I'd fight and fight to clear my name, I'd rather people heard the true but humiliating details of my private life than live the rest of my life with everyone thinking that I'd done something I hadn't, especially sexual assault on a minor.

One thing that lived with me since the start of this thing was an article that I read in which the journo had interviewed a great deal of current and past friends of his.  They all had differing opinions on him, but they all agreed on one thing:  He absolutely slept with Virginia Giuffre but would have been completely unaware that she was underage, or had been trafficked and would have been appalled had he found out.

Unfortunately for them both I think he found out rather too late.

Oh, and there the photo...

The big problem with this not going to trial, either criminal or civil, is that we will probably never know the real truth.

There is no doubt that Prince Andrew had some rather dubious associates, but then again I'm sure that most of us have discovered (after the fact) that someone they knew was the sort of person they didn't want to know - I certainly have. His visit to Epstein afterwards certainly demands answers, but I would prefer the sound to that video of the two of them walking together - or at least a lipreader's estimation of what was said - instead of just the video. 

Against this we have an alleged victim - with no verdict there cannot technically be any other term - who did not go through with a very well publicised court case after making such of show of demanding her day in court, insinuating that there were other victims as well, but instead took the money rather than exorcise any trauma she (and others ?) suffer from. I for one know of females who have made completely untrue allegations about males for nefarious reasons - i.e. to gain financially.

Did Andrew cave in financially to save his mother yet more trauma ?

Did Ms Giuffre choose the time when Andrew's mother would be most traumatised ?

Maybe I'm just plain cynical, after all, over my 66 years on this planet I've had the misfortune to "know" or at least "know of" far too many liars and general sh1t's from both sexes.

At present, I'm inclined to believe that both of them are lying, at least to a degree, and similarly that both of them have told some of the truth. I trust no-one in this, least of all the lawyers.

Somebody is lying (the most) - I would like to know, without a shadow of a doubt, who it is.

Well here's a big hint, Andrew has paid Giuffre over £10m.  Giuffre hasn't paid Andrew a penny.  

Who do you think, on the balance of probabilities, is the one telling the bigger porkies?  There's no shadow of a doubt for me.

Oh, and there's the photo...

Edit:  Just to be clear, I don't think she has told any lies at all.  Some recollections and details may be hazy, but given she was a 17 year old who had been trafficked, frequently given alcohol and flown around the world to be abused a billionaire and his associates I think we can expect that.

Think I might have caused confusion by not being clear enough.

When I said, "That response .... ",  I meant the response of Prince Andrew to Emily Maitlis about a 'straightforward shooting weekend', not the response of Tony.

Dave

What, another one!!!!

I have a small number of friends with pasts that really shouldn't be described on a public forum, including two who occasionally post on here, and I have an ex-friend who was a pathological liar to a very toxic degree, an ex-friend whose ignorant bigoted views were unacceptable to me and about three ex-friendly acquaintances who voted leave.

I don't know any famous billionaire paedophiles, rapists and sex traffickers who associate with presidents and royalty and whose very public profile would look ridiculous in a Bond film.

It is possible he met her but never slept with her I suppose.

I think he was going to look guilty in many people's eyes no matter the outcome of the trial (I think this thread demonstrates that). There are also the reasons I gave earlier.

That's interesting. Where would the law (UK and US) stand on that I wonder? It is not as if he is accused of paedophilia - just sleeping with an underage girl by the age limits in the places it occurred.

Broadly my position too, though I'd commit further than a bet and say that were I in a jury I'd find him guilty based on what I know, which is the same as any of us know, because his association with Epstein and Maxwell, while not being hard evidence of him having abused VG, is hard evidence of him being totally devoid of personal morality. That coupled with the photo is enough to convince me. 

This isn't because I'm a republican (I am) or because I hate privileged people abusing their position (I do) but because I cannot believe for a moment that he didn't realise the nature of the people he was associating with, and if he can put that aside for whatever reason then I think he is capable of almost anything. 

Although I have it on very good authority that he is as thick as mince, even a doped-up sheep couldn't visit Epstein Island or fly on The Lolita Express without thinking that something wasn't quite right.  

Seeing as she wasn’t actually underage (if I read that right) why he didn’t just say “I was a playboy prince and everyone wanted to sleep with me” instead of all the weird “i can’t sweat” stuff?

(I noticed someone downvoted this comment so just to clarify: i’m not offering that as an explanation, just saying it would be a more simple and convincing lie)

That might be admitting two crimes in NY:

1. at 17 she was below age of consent
2. she was victim of sex trafficking

https://time.com/6107815/prince-andrew-sexual-abuse-lawsuit-allegations/

It possible that he met her and didn't sleep with her, but not probable. Given his friend's opinions on him, and their knowledge of his habits at that time I think it unlikely. 

Clearly at that time if he were presented with young attractive woman at that time, given a knowing wink and encouraged to enjoy himself that's exactly what he would have done.  And without asking too many questions.  

I think it would be naiive to assume Ms Giuffre is the only young woman he slept with at this time, though I would guess, and hope, she was the only one who was under 18 and a victim of sex trafficking.  

Having intercourse with a trafficking victim in this country is an offence, but not a particularly serious one.  A small fine kind of thing.

However the age of consent is 18 in the US Virgin islands where one of the alleged encounters took place.  That could have been more difficult for him. 

I thought that was you sat next to me the other day old pogos place . Are you Eton or harrow ?

 Are you Eton or harrow ?

What an insult to a proud Scotsman! Surely he must be an Old Gordonstounian.

It is of course quite possible that he's guilty of these offences but not actually with Ms Guiffre. She may be lying but know that he has had sex with someone else who was trafficked but who is not prepared to go public. He may know this but also know that there's a chance it'll all come out in court, in which case she might lose the case but he'd still be totally discredited.

We only actually know what we're told by the media, goodness only knows what twists and turns are hidden from our view.

Also, regardless of his innocence or guilt, I can't see any way he could prove his innocence in that it would probably come down to "he said, she said" and that wouldn't clear his name in everybody's eyes - unless she basically admitted to making the whole thing up - which I don't think anyone seriously believes.

Interesting comment from Emily Maitlis:

BBC News - Prince Andrew's statement seems to contradict answers he gave me - Emily Maitlis
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60407806

Although she seems to go on to say they are not necessarily contradictory.

It's completely amazing that anyone would still be trying to argue that Andrew isn't guilty.

There's not much doubt about the facts.  Epstein and Andrew had 'massages' from young women which involved sex.   Giuffre was underage in Florida but not in the UK at the time of the allegations.

There are several other women making similar allegations.  The FBI successfully prosecuted both Epstein and Maxwell based on their testimony.  Giuffre wasn't asked to testify in the Maxwell case because they had so many witnesses they could choose which ones to use.

There's a legal-age English sports massage therapist who was booked by Andrew after working for Sarah Fergusson.  She says Andrew was a sex pest and she had to tell him to f*ck off after which she got no more bookings.

There's pictures of Andrew with Giuffre, pictures of Andrew looking very much at home in Epstein's house after Epstein was prosecuted and pictures of Epstein and Maxwell at Balmoral at Andrew's invitation.

Andrew's stories about a medical condition that stopped him sweating, and Pizza Express are pure bullsh*t which any prosecutor would tear apart.  If they were true he or his staff could prove them with documents, they already admitted they didn't have documents in the discovery phase of Giuffre's lawsuit.

If Andrew went to the US it is likely the FBI would arrest him and interview him as part of their continuing investigations into Epstein's associates after getting Maxwell.   If they decided to prosecute and considered him a flight risk they could even hold him until his trial.  There's no way he could avoid going to the US if the Giuffre lawsuit continued.

Next up is Prince Charles for letting his staff sell honours to rich Saudis and Russians in exchange for money for his 'charity'.  The 'Princes Foundation' charity is a vehicle for Charles to run an estate in Scotland with a big house and a bunch of antique furniture.  He loaned £20 million to the charity and these deals to get more money in will reduce his risk on the loan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumfries_House

The settlement of the case absolutely does nothing to prevent abuse of young people by rich individuals.

As above, I hope that Prince Andrew experiences great misfortune as a result of his actions and the way he has treated people throughout his life. He is a pathetic coward like many other child abusers hiding behind technicalities and the weaknesses of legal systems.

So we agree.

In my opinion it should have gone to court, and the charities that accept donations from this are as culpable in taking the pay off, just as much as The Royal family are in paying it.
It stinks, the whole bloody lot stinks.

No one comes out of this looking good.

I'm not arguing that he isn't guilty - I think it's very unlikely that he isn't, and even if he is actually innocent of Ms Guiffre's claims, he's certainly not coming across as someone you'd be happy to have as a neighbour and may be guilty of other similar offenses.

He's certainly doing (or done) a lot of "looks like a duck, quacks like a duck" but that's not proof, and I strongly doubt we'll ever know what really happened with any real certainty.

I agree, somebody not being able to buy their way out of it and having to go to court would be a much bigger deterrent to other rich people.

Like Charles?

The thing standing in the way of formal proof emerging in the form of a court verdict is that Andrew is hiding from the US authorities in the criminal case and settled the civil case.

Andrew comes across as a repulsive sex pest,  I would bet money he slept with Giuffre but wouldn't be surprised if he didn't.   However I don't  care that much that he slept with a 17 year old, i find it unpleasant  and creepy and I would never want to be friends with a guy of his age who did that, but it's not that big a deal for me.   What is  worse in my opinion is that he went back and stayed at epsteins house after epstein was convicted of Paedophilia,  If Andrew was a close friend or family member of mine that is the part that i could never get over or forgive.

What criminal case is that? To date as far as I know there are no criminal proceedings in the USA.No prosector has taken it on , and they would gain considerable kudos for doing so.

And do not kid yourself that Andrew would then be able to hide in the UK if a crimianl case was launched.That is not the way that the treaties between UK and USA work on crimianl law.Just look at Mike Lynch etc etc.

Its somewhat mixed success rate with several people not being extradited if they can make semi valid claims about how harsh the US system is. Plus Andrew is in a rather different category from all of those.

And don't forget Andrew. About the only famous Gordonstoun alumna I'd be proud of is Lara Croft!

More to the point no crimial case has been started.Until that happens extradition is irrelevant.

I find it odd that no criminal case is ongoing..maybe people should think about that. The US legal system is not forgiving on people like Andrew.

It really isnt. Long ago and one of those he said she said scenarios which makes beyond all reasonable doubt a tricky matter.

As for not forgiving on people like him. Remember Epstein got everything brushed under the carpet for years.

How about a criminal prosecution or do you prefer in normal life to follow the whims of an internet forum or a BBC interview to decide if somebody is guilty.

Strikes me that you are missing something.

The chances of a successful criminal prosecution are minimal given the time that has passed after Epstein was given several passes/light punishments by that US justice system that you claim would treat Andrew so harshly.

Whether he is guilty of the offences or not I am not sure but I am happy to follow my whim that some of his claims are false, eg never having met her and not sweating, and others are dubious, eg the pizza express excuse, and that he also chose to socialise with a convicted sex offender. So I would go with he is completely unsuited to being in any position where he represents this country.

Why should it be forgiving?

It is slow. They went after Epstein then Maxwell.... took years. There's probably other 'Johns' to get to before Andrew.

But it is a nice place to go for a walk, and he paid to renovate the old run down open air swimming pool which is now a fantastic place for a dook. So some good did come of him "selling" honours.

Most charities have pretty stringent rules on who they will or won't accept donations from.  My other half (who works in that sector) immediately questioned  whether any charities would be willing to accept his donations as they do not want to seen to be benefitting from other people's suffering.

Ms Giuffre's own Charity is different matter, her own charity is absolutely allowed to benefit from her own suffering.

It was initially incredibly forgiving of Epstein.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#First_criminal_case

Do you honestly believe that Charles micromanages ALL his staff so that he knows exactly what each and every one of them is doing and has done ?

If that was the case then he's a darn sight more competent and capable than all your comments regarding him up to now.

My thoughts entirely - at present both sides can claim the other is entirely in the wrong, and both sides are covered in "mud".

We need an outcome that actually makes a decision, not one that makes lawyers rich and everybody else pi$$ed off.

Public opinion or an internet forum is of no legal significance and does not result in imprisonment so a BBC interview is perfectly adequate to form an informed or ill informed opinion. You don't hold off on forming an opinion about a friend, colleague, neighbour or stranger just because they've not been in court or you've not sat on the jury.

Similarly if somebody punched you without provocation but was found not guilty because no other witnesses to say who was the aggressor (or you look shifty in court!), you wouldn't change your opinion of their guilt.

It wasnt exactly "all" of his staff but rather his right hand man. Plus it wasnt like it was a quiet tour of Buck Palace or Balmoral but the granting of honours. Given the damage caused by the various cash for honours scandals over the centuries I would expect even the barely competent to be very careful about them.

In what way is Ms Giuffre covered in 'mud'? Are you suggesting her allegations are not credible?  

'We' don't need an outcome. Out of our prurient interest, we might want an outcome, but when it comes down to it, this is a matter for Prince Andrew and Ms Giuffre and other victims of trafficking and abuse.

I wouldn't be surprised. There's a prominent UKCer who thinks Crisenda Dick manages who cleans the Met's toilets!

There's some really nasty stuff being said here, and some commentators who should really take a good look at themselves and be ashamed. And also some stuff which reveals a really child-like ignorance of the world.

jcm

First of all, this 'both sides are covered in mud' and 'she shouldn't have settled' stuff is absolutely disgusting. Fred99 and Steve Crossley should go away and reflect.

It is obvious to all decent people that victims of sexual abuse should be free, if they demonstrate the enormous courage and resolve needed to bring civil proceedings at all, to settle those proceedings on whatever terms they think  bring them the most healing. Ms Giuffre is not 'covered in mud' or anything of the kind.

jcm

Moreover, people who cannot pay their lawyers are not free to continue the case on whatever terms they want. The lawyers will be entitled to withdraw from the case if terms are offered which they think should be accepted. I don't say that happened here, but it should be remembered.

jcm

Second, as to lawyers getting rich, this is ignorance about the world of the most basic kind.

Trust me. If you want to get rich as a lawyer, you do not work, on a contingency basis, for the victims of sexual abuse. You work for rich people and corporations who will pay your fees.

jcm

Third, as to the rich and powerful being able to buy off sexual abuse charges, this is certainly true when it comes to being able to bribe prosecutors, as one imagines that Epstein did with the local prosecutor in 2008 (whom Trump subsequently appointed to his cabinet, doncha know?).

When it comes to civil proceedings, though, this is a problem which the poor and powerless simply do not have. The present is a case in point. Giuffre pursued Andrew in the civil courts precisely because he is famous and wealthy. Had he been Joe Six-pack, she wouldn't have done. It is not that he used his money to buy her off, so much as that his money was what got him into this trouble in the first place.

jcm

That would depend on Andy deciding whether or not he wants to hide behind Mummy. Not only is the Queen immune from all criminal or civil proceedings, no one else may be arrested on palace grounds or in her presence against her wishes.

Welcome to 21st century Britain 

Finally, as to surprise that there is no criminal prosecution, I don't find it in the least surprising. In order to succeed, a prosecution would need to show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that an act took place twenty years to which there are no witnesses. It would also, at least in relation to most of the complaints, need to show that Andrew was aware that the young woman he was with was (i) 17 and not 18, and (ii) that she was not there of her own free will.  It strikes me as very unsurprising that prosecutors might feel that their limited budgets were better spent on cases with more chance of success.

jcm

I did know he got a very cushy deal for the criminal case in Florida but I did not know it was actually just plain corruption.

I wouldn't criticise somebody for taking legal advice saying "it's a lot of pain, unaffordable and no gain to sue somebody with no money" nor would I criticise somebody for taking legal advice saying "it's a lot of pain and potentially a big gain to sue somebody with money".

Nor would I; of course not. I gave that very advice yesterday.

jcm

1. Ms Giuffre is a victim of a very serious and traumatic crime that happened to her whilst she was a minor.  You're out of order for suggesting that her character is in any way tainted by this torrid affair.

2. The whole point of civil cases is to seek a financial settlement to compensate the victim of the crime, not so we can find out the lurid details of what happened for the sake of titillation.  

If it makes you pissed off that the victim of a child sex crime has been awarded a settlement that they feel is suitable, and means they have been able to avoid the trauma recanting the episode in court then I think you need to have a look at your priorities and ask yourself whose side you're on here.

Yes I can see the moral difference between her charity and other charities, and I have had a look at her Charity https://www.speakoutactreclaim.org which does seem to have very worthwhile aims, and if the money received from Andrew Windsor, is used efficiently it could do much good.
However I stand by my viewpoint, that it would have done more to further the cause  of victims of trafficking, if Windsor had been dragged kicking and screaming into court, and the whole sordid thing had been examined, in court,  though obviously I accept this would have been unpleasant for Guiffre.

The problem is with this situation is that Windsor though never having been in court, will forever be tarnished as a sexual predator, and it could always be suggested in some quarters, that because Guiffre took the money, that was all she was interested in, in the first place.

As I have said, no one comes out of this well.

Thank you for that, please read my posting re the David Goodwilie case and my last posting. I think the whole thing is disgusting, and if you read into the Goodwillie case the FA and some very senior figures in Scottish Politics do not look so good. 
I just believe that more could have been achieved in court, and that Windsor will fade into the background and will continue to live a life of unimaginable privilege compared to the rest of us. And that in certain quarters, Guiffre will always been seen to have taken the money. This is not a quarter I am in, but I never said I was, did I.

Would it have made any difference if she had gone to court and won?

This was a civil case, so the outcome of that would be her getting awarded damages and Andrew being tarnished as a sexual predator and her branded, by some, as just after money but would have been more traumatic for the victim.

Also, given that the burden of proof required in a civil case is less than that of a criminal case, there would still be people on here claiming that he might not have done it.

I think it's right that Andrew is forever tarnished as a sexual predator.  He's just paid a woman £10m quid to avoid a sexual assault on a minor case.  If you do that people will think you're guilty.  He knows this, but paid it anyway.  Because he did it.

I think so, and my belief is Windsor and his Lawyers thought it worth paying £10 million, to avoid going to court, so they thought so too.

[EDIT] So basically they have used money to chose the outcome they prefer, in the situation. I just think this is wrong.

In my opinion it would send a clear message, that no matter how powerful and well connected you are, you will end up in court if you do bad things. Possibly its a naive view.

Clearly other people have different opinions.

Which very senior figures are those? The only two politicians I can find who have voiced an opinion are Nicola Sturgeon and Gordon Brown, both of whom condemned Raith for the signing.

If you read deeper into it, IIRC, at the time Sturgeon was rather woolly on it. Read the article in the Sunday Morning Post, I am happy to be contradicted.

Here you go, from the link I previously posted https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/denise-clair-goodwillie/

"

But, Ms Clair pointed out, the first minister was less vocal when politicians of all parties – including leaders of all three opposition parties – backed a Sunday Post campaign four years ago to force Goodwillie’s club, Clyde, to sack him and for prosecutors to properly explain why the criminal case against him was dropped in 2011."

I think you need to do better than the Sunday Post. I have no idea if the section which concentrates more on the politicians than on the victim or the footballers is remotely accurate but it reeks of journalistic opportunism using a horrendous story to push an agenda, one which the Sunday Post most definitely has. I may be wrong about the article of course. 

I am genuinely interested having grown up one street away from RRFC (now probably, justifiably and forever known as Rape Rovers) and having nearly come to blows with one its board members c. a decade ago as he was my Mum's very bad neighbour.

Out of interest, what part of Scotland do you live in?

I did, which I thought it would have been obvious.

No thanks.

I do, very.

But well done, we have established that this and Randy Andy's shenanigans are Nicola Sturgoen's fault again. Hooray.

Tell than to Ghislaine Maxwell.

Ghislaine Maxwell, who incidentally is now in a US Federal Penitentiary for a long time and may well be wondering if she should grass out her friends for less time or a nicer jail.

If I was in this kind of standoff with a US Federal Prosecutor I would be very wary of travelling to the US.  

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-prince-andrew.h...

On the contrary, the cartoons are about the only good reason to buy the Sunday Post.

Indeed. I would say Andre has taken his last walk in Central Park

Yes she was the victim of a crime (or crimes) - committed by Epstein (now dead), and also his aide (now in prison).

As to any crimes allegedly committed by anyone else - we do not categorically know whether anyone else did, or whether she is confused as to who did what and when. Only a legal case can attempt to find the truth (or the best assessment of it). Anything put out by lawyers or journalists is most certainly not reliable.

I am reminded of a Bristol man ( a teacher ?) a couple of years ago who rented a house (or flat ?) to a young woman who was attacked and killed. He was of a "type" that made everyone say he was guilty, as he "looked wrong" and was a solitary unmarried male. He endured all kinds of abuse, and had to be kept separate even when arrested. End result - someone else, a young male who was much more gregarious and a "man about town" was proved to be the real culprit. The unfortunate person initially accused never did get his life back again - so much for the jury of public opinion.

Just because someone looks (or sounds) like a pervert doesn't mean they are one. I can remember when any and all homosexual men were regarded by a large sector of society (not by me I hasten to add), as sexual predators purely because of their sexual preference - ridiculous we all (at least I hope all) think now, but such views used to exist.

There is another problem here. Surely Epstein had numerous servants and such like - each of which must have spent far more time with him, and supposedly "aided" any criminality. I'd like to know why each and every one of them hasn't been investigated by the New York Attorney. Their recollections would help matters here greatly.

I'm not really quite sure what you're trying to say here, but I would say that if you're trying to draw a comparison between Christopher Jefferies in the Joanna Yeates case, and Prince Andrew it's a very, very strange comparison to draw.

Chris Jefferies was entirely innocent, was apologised to by the police and he was paid damages by The Sun newspaper for the stories they wrote about him.

Prince Andrew has not been apologised to by anyone (in fact he's put out a statement saying he regrets his association) and he is the party who is paying damages to the victim.

Jefferies was a victim of press hysteria and speculation, Giuffre was a victim of sexual abuse.

Prince Andrew isn't a victim of anything, so it's a very very odd parallel you're drawing here.

Did he have a public record of knowingly associating with billionaire paedos, rapists and sex traffickers, with compelling photographic evidence to boot?

Did he pay someone £10 million pounds?

As far as I know, and please provide a link if you know differently, Prince Andrew has associated with only Epstein and his one-time girlfriend who can be described in such a manner. The photo with him and Giuffre in it appears no different to any photo taken when someone in the public eye is asked for a photo.

I have NEVER said Prince Andrew is innocent. I have NEVER said Ms. Giuffre is lying.

I do however believe (from proven financial dealings) that Prince Andrew can be (and has been) a right sh1t, and that Ms. Giuffre (from previous US court dealings) has been the victim of some pretty deplorable abuse.

What I have said is that we cannot know for sure - due to the lack of a court case - whether or not Prince Andrew was also guilty of such abuse to Ms. Giuffre.

I have also said that due to the lack of a trial, either side could (if they wished) claim either innocence or vindication, and can equally claim the other side to be lying or squirming away on a legal "nicety".

I have been chided for saying that the lawyers are only interested in the money by someone who claimed that all the lawyers he knows are wonderful people. But this is all taking place in the USA, a country where lawyers regularly go to the press first with their "version" of events, and without any means of these statements being verified. Furthermore a few TEAMS of lawyers have argued that Pence could and indeed should have put Trump back in the Whitehouse - if that doesn't suggest that (American) lawyers have questionable ethics then I don't know what could.

I don't know the truth, no-one on here does - unless they were actually present. I simply wish to point out that we shouldn't judge matters based on what we see in the Press or on TV, particularly anything put out by any concerned parties, as such one-sided pseudo information is rarely reliable when compared to what actually occurred. We should instead reserve our judgement until the truth is out there - until then we may have a view, but such a view is not fact, and should not be treated as such.

I'd also like to see - though I think this unfortunately to be unlikely - the NYC court instigate some sort of judicial investigation, ideally with a view to CRIMINAL proceedings if (or when) anything was identified, into Epstein's activities, in order to identify just who else was actually involved in anything illegal. I'm sure Epstein never cooked his own meals, did his own housework, or drove his own car - nor would anyone living in his "exalted" group. There are former staff out there who must know what went on, and who with, both in the US and elsewhere.

I think maybe you should sit quietly for a while and try and clarify your thinking. Criminal courts don't have access to God; they're as fallible as any other human institution (think O J Simpson). Andrew has implicitly admitted his guilt by paying £ millions of his Mum's money to Giuffre; what more do you want?

And as mentioned above, even raising the name of the Bristol landlord (which I won't), irrespective of context or qualification, however well meaning, is just adding to the profound injustice that was visited on a wholly innocent victim. It could have been you.

I don't think that is necessarily the case. He may believe he is not guilty (or possibly even not be guilty), but been pressured into paying up so that the whole business does not drag on during the Queen's Jubilee year, or because he himself would rather disappear quietly than be dragged through the dirt of a trial with the outcome far from certain.

I'll bet you're a dab hand at limbo dancing, too, bending over backwards...

As an aside, have you heard of a single person who actually knows him suggest anything other than guilty as sin?

Actually, for what it's worth, I have only heard of people who know him defending him to a greater or lesser extent (not that I wouldn't take a lot of it with a very big pinch of salt). Who were you thinking of?

I got halfway through that and had to lie down. 

I don’t agree with this view at all.

In the US legal system there are frequent instances where a civil case has been brought and the party being sued has been paid “go away money” say for example a paparazzi scuffles with a drunk celeb outside a club and sues them for millions of dollars for all kinds of damages.

it’s just not worth the stress, pain and potential reputation all damage to fight it, so they just pay some money to make it go away. But in these cases the amount the sued party pays is a tiny fraction compared to the about at stake, we’re talking $50k on a multi million dollar case.

Don’t confuse that with what has happened here. Andrew has paid up, and paid big. This isn’t “go away” money, this is the more or less the amount. “But let me at least not have to admit it” money.

He knows he had sex with that woman, he’s an arrogant man and thought he could make it go away but he’s failed and he’s had to pay her the lot in order to avoid total humiliation.

Like I said upthread, he knows how this looks, and he’s going to have to live with that.

Final note, remember how the Weinstein thing came out? As it emerged he settled out of court to the tune of millions of dollars to women? Sound familiar?

Oh and there’s the photo.

Now I know I keep mentioning that, but let’s for a moment think about who the one person is who linked Maxwell, Andrew and Giuffre? Who is missing from this photo?

Theres only one logical answer of who took that photograph, and that means we’re looking at a photo of Prince Andrew with his arm around a 17 year old victim of sex trafficking, next to a convicted sex trafficker taken by a convicted peadophile. 

How can you suggest he has any doubt that he is guilty?
 

Out of interest, has anyone actually seen the photo as a physical thing as opposed to what is seen on the Internet?

Some of them were called to give evidence at the Maxwell trial.   The ones on his private island may be out of reach of the US justice system.

I don't know, but it is interesting that Andrew's US lawyers went from 'we demand to see the original photograph' to 'here's 10 million dollars' a few days later.  If their big hope for the trial was casting doubt on the photo that might suggest it exists and can be produced.

Have you got a link to that?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/prince-andrew-virginia-giuf...

I think most plausible of the possibilities is that he did sleep with her but did not know that she was underage (on the occasions she was) or that she had been trafficked, and so, as jcm said in his post at 15.47 on Thursday, he would not be criminally guilty. Of course it would mean he lied in the interview and was possibly very naive (as well as very sleazy) at the time, but those are different matters.

It’s a photograph of a photograph, the original doesn’t seem to be in anyone’s possession.

I’d guess it was in Epstein’s possession and has been destroyed at some point over the years.

Yes I agree. Like I said upthread, that’s exactly what his friends all agreed on. That he would have slept with her, but wouldn’t have known her age or that she was a sex trafficking victim.

I think having sex with a victims of trafficking is a crime regardless of whether you’re aware, but it’s complicated as the offence happened before the recent modern slavery laws, and it’s a relatively minor offence and its many years in the past and would need to be proven so there’s no chance the police would pursue this here.

Not so sure about the US. Doubt he’ll be popping over any time soon! 

So are you now agreeing that it is plausible that he is not guilty? If the truth ever came out, then this is what I hope it is since it would leave everyone in the best possible light (or perhaps least bad in his case) I think; she would not be lying (I don't think any decent person would like to think she is) and he is just sleazy and naive. Of course there are those who will always want to think the worst of him because of his privilege and their distaste for the monarchy (I think there are probably a few on here).

Could all international travel be off limits for PA due to risk of an extradition request ready and waiting to be made when he leaves the UK?

Rereading my earlier post, I didn't express myself well. If he had sex with someone underage in the jurisdiction where the act took place then that's an offence regardless of whether he knew her age, of, course (at least by UK law; I've no idea about Florida or New York, still less the quaintly-named American Virgin Islands). It's with trafficking that I think the prosecution needs to show knowledge or wilful ignoring of facts.

As so often, I do wonder whether honesty wouldn't have been best from the beginning. Suppose he had said right away - 'sure, I went out to Tramps with this girl and we had sex. She was a friend of a friend and I just assumed she was a sexually active young woman who was up for one-night stands with famous strangers, as some people are. I was married at the time and I shouldn't have done it, but people make mistakes.', I wonder what the public fallout would have been. It could hardly have been worse.

jcm

No I don’t believe it’s plausible that he isn’t “guilty”. I think we’re conflating two issues here.

This was a civil trial in which Ms Giuffre sued Andrew for sleeping with her whilst she was a minor and a victim of sex trafficking.  Which he had paid a lot of money to avoid trial. There’s no chance, in my eyes, that he wasn’t liable (remember, this is a civil trial, it’s not guilty or innocent).

The other issue is as to whether he is guilty of a criminal offence. I think he is, albeit a relatively minor one that he probably didn’t realise he was commiting at the time but there is little or no realistic chance of prosecution in this country so he’ll never face charges here.

The age of consent is lower in other places their encounters took place, so I think there’s still a small chance he could face charges overseas, though I think it’s not likely.

Assuming that the photo isn't a photoshopped fake (and I'm presuming here that it either isn't or isn't detectable as such because his rather well paid legal team would have surely covered that), he would surely have been better off saying that he'd posed for photos with several people but that didn't mean he'd slept with them.

To thread:

Although I think this is unlikely, consider this scenario. What if he hadn't slept with her but had been in the same places at the same times. And he knows that there is no way he could win a civil case (which only requires a "balance of probabilities" verdict) on the evidence that would be presented especially after having denied any knowledge or contact with Ms Guiffre.

What should he then do?

1. Go to court and protest innocence, lose the case, reputation and have to make a multi-million $ payout.
2. Make the payout now and avoid the court humiliation.

Some of you seem to be denying that he'd obviously go for 2, court would only ever be an option if there was a reasonable (or at least significant) chance of winning.

So to my way of thinking, the huge payout does not imply guilt, it merely implies "no chance of showing innocence". Of course he'd also go for 2 if he had slept with her and couldn't "prove" that he hadn't.

So even though I think it's more likely that he did sleep with her than not, I totally agree with those who are saying that we simply will never actually know, regardless of how much we suspect or believe that he is guilty.

I'm sure there are some who will think the worst of him without looking at the evidence. On the other hand you do seem rather oddly determined to see the best in him at every turn. Why is that? 

I suspect that is a very accurate description of the actual events.

I very much doubt Epstein or Maxwell said "we've trafficked this young girl for you to have sex with". Much more likely "This is Virginia: she's very keen to meet you".

I think he's probably guilty of having denied doing what he plausibly has done, he's definitely lied about not being able to sweat, which sets me thinking that he likely has done what he's been saying he didn't do (given that she spoke of him being very sweaty), which likely makes him liar, a gas lighter of a of a sex trafficking victim, somebody out to discredit them to save their own skin while knowing they're telling the truth, which isn't very wholesome.

Really just trying to see what the best case is; not necessarily saying that is the most likely case. Having said that, I find it quite hard to believe that he would have slept with her if he had known or believed she was underage or trafficked.

Just so much fresh meat. You're right, I don't suppose he inquired much into her backstory.

Two friends come over from America bringing a teen who wanted to sleep with him.

If that's a fair summary, it's hard to believe he wanted to know.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, "To lose one prisoner may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/jean-luc-brunel-death-priso...

I would imagine in Tramps that night, and every night, many sexual liaisons took place without full back ground checks and an in depth interview.

Footballers, Celebrities, business people, politicians will have been the recipients of offers of all sorts of things, drugs, sex, free drinks, invites to functions as people tried to get a piece of their lifestyle or seek influence.

Have you never noticed that rich famous blokes always have beautiful women by there sides, who always seem to be getting younger. Take that good looking bloke Mick Jagger, currently going out with a 32 year old Ballet dancer, do you really think she would be seeing him if he worked as a delivery driver. https://www.ranker.com/list/mick-jagger-loves-and-hookups/celebrityhookups

I very much doubt it would be a unique occurrence for a Royal Prince, Multi Millionaire Helicopter Pilot war Hero to have sex offered to him at Tramps Nightclub along with free £500 bottles of Champagne.

You should watch this video of Hislop asking the select committee about some football tickets  youtube.com/watch?v=Fg3DsTuG7yY& 
Its how the world works. Its wrong and it disgusts me to the core, but its the way it is.

How many underage girls, trafficked across borders by multimillionaire paedophiles for coercive sex with repulsive royals though? Any advance on one?

You see this in terms of everyday perks of the rich and famous. No. Sex trafficked underage girls are an entirely different category headed something like “vile and abusive sex offence”

a 32 year old ballet dancer in a consensual relationship is in an entirely different category to an underage girl, trafficked 3000 miles from home and coerced into having sex with a stranger more than twice her age.

perhaps you’re right, perhaps he frequently had coerced sex with underage girls. That this was normal for him doesn’t make it okay.

Nah, didn’t watch it because underage sex crime victims are not football tickets.

No. Trafficking and coercing underage girls into sex with much older strangers isn’t “how the world works” and your continued attempts to minimise and deflect the crimes of a convicted sex offender and his friends and conspirators disgusts me.

Your naivety astounds me.
To the traffickers, their victims are of no more relevance than a football ticket or a bottle of champagne. This is the essence of trafficking people, the victims are dehumanised and commoditised, and then used or sold by the traffickers. Epstein and Maxwell are/ where convicted traffickers. I was listening to a harrowing story the other day of groomed girls escaping from the place of safety they had been taken, to get back to the groomers, who they believed they loved, and loved them in return. Pretty awful stuff.
Andrew is a foolish privileged man. Is he guilty of knowingly having sex with a trafficked person, well I dont know and never will because he has paid £10 ?million pounds to make sure I never do, I probably never will. Obviously you and other people have information on this matter that I do not have, as you know he is guilty.
I am not defending Andrew, just saying I would rather he had gone to court, but I understand why a victim would chose not to go down that route.
 

Because it would have been so difficult to find out.......

"Ghislaine, this one seems a bit young, how old is she?"

"Not sure Andrew"

"Be a poppet and have a quick shuftie at her passport; wouldn't like anything embarrassing to come out of this down the line".

While there is a debate on here as to whether Andrew would have still had sex with her if he knew she was underage, dont forget that he is someone who is willing to pay very significant sums to not have to face allegations in court that at age 46 he was having casual sexual relations with someone who may or may not have been underage, but in any case turns out to be only 5 years older than his eldest daughter.

Nobody is denying that she was trafficked (along with plenty others). This is why Maxwell is serving a long prison sentence and why Epstein would be too if he hadn't killed himself. What we do not know and now probably never will know is the degree of Andrew's culpability. It is possible to envisage perfectly plausible scenarios ranging from where he simply met a much younger attactive woman through friends at a club who seemed attracted to him and ended up sleeping with her (seedy but otherwise pretty blameless) to being well aware of her being trafficked (inexcusable and  criminal). 

Ignorance is no excuse.

CB

Maybe in law. But an awful lot better than knowing.

Is it though?  Deliberately not asking in case the answer isn't to your taste, and/or you can claim ignorance at a later stage.  Pretty cynical use of the "deniable culpability" ploy.

Or, perhaps even worse, she had been so objectified that in his eyes it simply wasn't a question it occurred to him to ask or even consider.

Given his notorious interview, and how he seemingly thought he'd knocked it out the park, I'm inclined to favour the latter.

As I said, it is possible to plausibly envisage a wide range of culpability. Obviously suspecting she was underage but not asking is a lot worse than not suspecting.

I think we don't know the half of it.  People do stuff for years and then one day they get unlucky and they get caught.  After that happens, when the system works, the rest of it often unravels and you get to see how much sh*t they did before.  Maxwell senior is a prime example of that.  I think Trump is heading in that direction.  

The guy who killed himself in a French jail ran a model agency and seems to have been accused of pimping girls from Europe into Epstein's network.   The question is whether Epstein was a rich banker who was a paedo as a hobby or whether he was a paedo banker who got billionaire level rich by pimping girls around the legal age of consent to rich and powerful people behind the doors of private estates in exchange for information or business.

It's probably not a coincidence that Giuffre was 17 for the meeting with Andrew in London.  That's just old enough for it to not be illegal in the UK.   The 'massage' thing is also a way of providing a layer of deniability.

The photo of Andrew opening the door in Epsteins house  youtube.com/watch?v=aCJcMJdR1DY& and Andrew and Epstein walking in Central Park show how close they were.

"18 Andrew, a lot of girls are older than they look, it's the current fashion."

"Ah okay, wouldn't like anything embarrassing to come out of this down the line".

He could have been lied to left, right and centre. Having a (gullible, randy) Prince as your mate would be very usable to increase Epstein and Maxwell's influence in the social strata of the rich.

Doesn't mean I think he's smelling of roses but there are just so many possibilities where his behaviour is "merely" seedy and reprehensible rather than knowingly criminal.

We'll just never know exactly how far down the slope of possibilities he went. Hopefully he'll never be rehabilitated back into public life.

'The 'massage' thing is also a way of providing a layer of deniability.' I don't know why we are still using that word in this context; there's another, that also begins with an m, which is a rather more accurate description of what these girls were paid to do.

What a w*nker that Epstein was.

Indeed. The only reason I can think of for not wanting to know is if you would prefer them to be as young as possible and dont want to "know" they are over 18. Because then you cant use the excuses of

"she looked older"

"She told me she was 18"

"nobody told me she was underage". etc etc.

I view the gap separating criminal behaviour from incredibly sleazy behaviour, based purely on the age of the girl involved as being vanishingly small.

In reply to anyone thinking there are any possible "innocent" scenarios;

If a man in his mid 40's took your 15 year old daughter or close female relative to nightclubs, expected massages from them etc and had sex, consensual or otherwise, you would be understandably outraged. Would you view the same scenario to be "just a bit sleazy", but no worse, if your daughter or female relative was 17 or 18?

I am sure that is something we can all agree on. Though the word does not really do justice to the magnitude of his crimes.

Well, yes, it is at the instant of the girl reaching the age of consent under the relevant jurisdiction.

I would say more than just a bit sleazy. Although the law has to have an arbitrary cut off age, I imagine judges can use discretion in giving harsher sentences for younger ages, especially if getting in to the realms of paedophilia (obviously not the case here), just as we would probably see it as being less sleazy with greater legal age (other things being equal).

Out of interest when does it stop being sleazy? Dad was in his 40's when he married mum 23, I think they met a year or two earlier and by all accounts mum "made all the running“

Which just shows there are no hard and fast rules about these things! A lot probably depends on the local culture just as criminality depends on local laws.

When you're in a committed relationship with another adult (like your Father) rather than having casual sex with a coerced child (the bloke in the OP).

When both parties are acting without the coercive influence of others (including those in the relationship itself), and have been an adult long enough to act like one and accept the outcome of their decisions

Just to be clear I'm not trying to make any excuses for PA or equate his actions to my dad's

Perhaps it's the maths teacher in me looking at numbers. I agree with all the replies (who wouldn't?) but there are (understandably?) no numbers in them.

Careful, I got in trouble on here, for what I thought was a self depreciating Welsh comment (-:

Again, it’s all about what you want to know, what you would have liked to have happened for the sake of your own curiosity. Not a mention or the slightest whiff of a f*ck given about what Ms Giuffre wants, after the trauma she has been through.

Imagine she was your daughter, and you read a thread of middle aged men on an Internet forum venting their annoyance that she hasn’t taken the stand and gone through all the lurid details, and how irritated they are that they now can’t be sure if he did it.

How would you feel?

I’m honestly disgusted at some of the views expressed on this thread. 

+1, as a father of two daughters now in their early twenties parts of this thread make for disturbing reading!

CB

But there is a whole continuum between those.

There was an interesting clip on Pick of the Week on R4 earlier from Americast with an American (called - Randy..... Yes, stop gigging at the the back.... ) about how these settlements work. Might be worth a listen to the whole thing.

Although there may be one or two posts that fit this description you IMO are basically misreading or exaggerating what a lot have said - namely that however much we may believe Andrew to be guilty, without a trial the best opportunity for the facts to come out has been "lost", so no-one (except him and Ms Guiffre) can definitively know whether he is guilty or not.

Is that important, personally not, but it may have been the best deterrent to other wealthy people taking advantage of others and then using their wealth to get away with it. A payoff avoiding a trial is basically advertising to other wealthy people "this is how you get away with it".

Very few on here have been "venting their annoyance" and been irritated.

I must admit that I've heard very little about Ms Guiffre in all of this, basically just the claims she made about sleeping with Andrew. Is this because I've missed a whole lot of the story, or has there been very little "impact on the victim" type publicity about how all of this affected her all those years ago and since then.

I think there is only one poster who has expressed any such frustration.

No, he coerced very young girls into doing that for him. Which is much, much worse.

That's charitable. People who are interested in over-age girls don't need Epstein.

No it isnt! I wrote it like that to show exactly how easy it would be to determine her age and therefore to avoid the current "unpleasantness". The other obvious easy way to avoid it is to not court controversy by firstly not going off with girls the same age as your daughters, and to not mix with the likes of Epstein and Maxwell, who's activities he must have been aware of, especially after Epsteins 2008 conviction. There's only one reason you hang around with the likes of him.

Oh come off it, it also gives one the opportunity to mingle with a cosmopolitan group of what I would describe as, er, US, um, eminence.

I just can't understand how a demonstrated liar ('I have the inability to sweat') isn't the one having aspersions cast in their direction, it's hard not to think there's some misogyny at work, given the obviousness of his lying.

Who'd trust a known liar? Strikes me that step one in weighing things up is 'Have they ever lied?'. 

Who is not casting aspersions in their direction?

How silly of me to be overly biased on of side the victim sexual abuse rather than the men discussing the details of her abuse on an internet forum.

Who has not taken the side of the victim? 

That's two question you've asked of people this morning that you could answer yourself by scrolling up.

Is your mouse broken or something? 

I just think that if people are going to misrepresent what others have said then they should be prepared to say who they are talking about.

You are taking meaning out of posts where that meaning is not present. Whether you are doing this willfully or because you are so inflamed about the issue that you are no longer able to appreciate exactly what is being said, I don't know.

Many on here (including myself) have basically said that regardless of our beliefs, suspicions, and the apparent likelihood of events having occurred, there is no absolute certainty about all of this.

You seem to have taken that kind of statement to mean that the poster thinks that Andrew's actually a nice guy and Ms Guiffre is just lying. I don't think anyone's doing that.

Stop it.

I'm not going to call people out just because you want me to Robert.

If the cap fits and all that.

And frankly, if my post makes people on this thread consider if they are more on the side of a victim of sexual abuse than that of the press, their own self interest or the perpetrator then I don't think that a bad thing.   

Do you?

No I haven't and no, I won't.

I just want you to admit that you can't call anyone out, because the answers to both my questions is nobody.

Eh? What on earth are you on about?

This 'best case' stuff is pretty odd, really not sure where you are going with that. You find it 'hard to believe' the victim..... and seem to think you have some insight into Andrew's character. This is a someone who has lied, allowed his lawyers to smear the victim, and still went to see Epstein after he'd been arrested.

The people casting aspersions in the direction of Virginia whatsit/doubting her credibility, by inference aren't being sceptical of Prince Andrew, who's lied about not being able to sweat and used that to suggest she hasn't been telling the truth. 

Well what are you trying to imply then?

At the risk of being "flamed" (again);

I think it highly unlikely that any "daughter or female relative" of most people would inform their parents or other relatives of who they are having sex with, or indeed if they are. And how many young girls want an older (just how much older ??) boyfriend with all the trappings that boys their age don't have - money, a smart car and so on.

I also wonder just how many parents wrongly believe their offspring are sweet and innocent, especially when they trot off to University or go on holiday with their pals. As for the number of under-age girls who get into night clubs when they are supposed to be 18 or even 21 before gaining admittance - I know that these places are supposed to have cleaned up their act, but fake ID's can still be obtained.

I'm not implying anything.  I'm saying that there are posts on this thread which question the honesty of Ms Giuffre, and I don't like that.

She's a survivor of rape, sexual assault and battery and has shown incredible character and courage to fight for what she has gained, and to have done so in the public eye.  

Any kind of speculation about how Andrew could be innocent, including if prefaced with something along the lines of "I think he did do it, but..." and then speculating about some far fetched method which involves Ms Giuffre being dishonest, in my eyes, isn't ok either

If you or other people on here think that kind of speculation is fine then go right ahead, but if you do that on a public forum such as this don't be surprised if a mouthy little tw@t like me (and I concede I am both of those things!) sticks his hand up and says this isn't ok.  

I don't think I've misrepresented anyone, I've just called thing as I've seen them, however clearly I see things differently to how some others on this thread do.

Of course a lot of kids lie to their parents about what they are doing, and with whom - were those same parents any different when teenagers.........but I suspect the reaction might be different if a parent were to find out that their 17 yo daughters partner was a local20 yo youth with a job and a car, as opposed to a wealthy 46 year old businessman from out of town.

Oh, some undoubtedly do, but i cant help thinking they are only fooling themselves; i know what i was like when i went to uni, and i dont really expect my kids were / are any different. I'd probablyhave been disappointed if they did turn out to be goody two shoes.........

Who has done that?

Where are these posts?

Well I think you should read peoples' posts more carefully before making your really quite offensive aspersions without having the decency to name names.

I

Perhaps this is your experience. Other family dynamics are available this century.

This disturbing deflection and minimisation of the case may be why you've been getting flamed. Let me set it our for you; 

Virgina wasn't in a relationship with an older boyfriend with a nice car. She was a child, coerced into sex with much older married men who weren't interested in any having any sort of relationship with her.

Been out to many nightclubs recently Fred? And here's a newsflash for you, in this century children being trafficked by millionaire paedophiles, taken to nightclubs and and coerced into sex with married men more than twice their age, doesn't preclude them from being sweet and innocent.

You might want to look up the term victim blaming and have a bit of a think about it prior to posting.

This +1, saves me from typing the same thing!

CB

If you've read the thread you'll know what I'm talking about. With you being a teacher, I credit you with enough English comprehension related intelligence to be able to have done that.

I mean you could just press "ctrl F" and search for some keywords, for example "lying" and see if those posts relate to Ms Giuffre?

If you want to call them out and join me in condemning them; or start defending them that's your business, but that's not the way I like to operate and there's absolutely nothing wrong with my reading. 

Make that +2

You said

" Having said that, I find it quite hard to believe that he would have slept with her if he had known or believed she was underage or trafficked."

Ms Giuffre claims Andrew did just that, had sex with her knowing her age and that she was trafficked

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58871849

Maybe you should clarify what 'hard to believe' means to you?

Beyond me why you and others feel the need to speculate on this, let alone on a public forum.

Thanks for that link. I can honestly say that I have never before read or heard of her claim that he knew she was underage and trafficked. I (and I think others) have, in good faith, been discussing the possible extent of his culpability with the assumption that she was not lying. Obviously now knowing this part of her claim puts a very different complexion an any such discussion. I am actually surprised that nobody has mentioned it before given that, while not explicitly doubting her, some of us have questioned whether Andrew might have known she was underage of trafficked; maybe this part of her claim is simply not very well known. Anyway, ignorance is not an excuse, so I can only apologise.

I shall change that to "surprised".

Never took you for a comedian but have now discovered you’ve a great sense of humour… 

This was an exchange between you and I upthread:

Surely any notion that he may not have done what Virginia Guiffre said he did can now be discounted?

If that's not expressing an explicit doubt about the truth of what Ms Giuffre said then I don't know what is.  

I've been repeatedly accused of misrepresenting people on this thread so I think it's only fair to draw attention to you misrepresenting your own argument. 

However I do appreciate, and am pleased, that you are taking a more conciliatory approach to this argument, and are less questioning of Ms Giuffre than you, and indeed some others, seemed to be upthread.

I don't think accepting that she is being truthful is quite the same as completely ruling out the possibility, however small, that she isn't - I don't think anyone could do that now that the case is legally closed.

As I said I have never been questioning of her given what I believed her (wrongly) to have said.

So in effect you're saying that you accept that she is telling the truth, whilst also not ruling out that she might not be telling the truth, and that these positions aren't mutually exclusive.

It's a new one on me, I must admit...

We all accept many things every day from sources we trust and act on them in good faith as though thery are true while knowing that there is a chance they are not true; I suppose we feel that there is not "reasonable doubt". 

For example, I hope you accept that I am being truthful that I that I had not heard that Guiffre claimed Andrew knew her age and that she had be trafficked, but you certainly cannot be 100% certain that I am not making it up (I'm not).

To be fair, that is reasonable.  Every time we trust our weight to the rope we know that there is a chance it could snap under our weight, even if we know it is the remotest of chances. 

I accept that, and it was wrong of me to try to back you into a corner and make you take a more binary position of whether you believe her or not.

That said, I stand by the view that some of the posts and speculation on this thread are somewhat distasteful but, I hasten to add that your posts are absolutely not those which I find the most disagreeable, not by a long way.    

I do accept that completely, it's a detail that I think many had missed and, for what it's worth, though we've had a level of disagreement on this thread, I've always regarded you very straight talking and honest fella who I would have no reason to doubt the word of. 

On that note apologies if I've been rather terse towards you today.  Like I said, I'm a mouthy tw@t, and though I stand by the meaning of what I say, sometimes my mouth (or in this case fingers) run away with me and I can go a little too far.   

"She says the duke knew her age and that she was a sex-trafficking victim."

I wasn't aware that she had stated this.

Has Ms Guiffre given evidence in court? - either at Epstein's or Maxwell's trial. Similarly, is there independent evidence to support what she says, either directly or indirectly (e.g. someone has stated in court that she was one of several girls who always seemed to be around Epstein's various properties). I'm not doubting such evidence, I simply don't know if it exists. The photo is one such piece of support but by itself it's not very strong except in showing Andrew to have lied (or to have been so high on drugs or alcohol to not remember - a non-starter IMO since there's no indication of that from the photo).

Because without stuff like that it basically comes down to a "she said, he said" situation which is very tricky to establish certainty about. In the west, we normally accept a criminal trial as producing sufficient certainty to be able to definitively state "he did this", etc. But we haven't had that, so to my mind, although the evidence I've seen makes me think it's much more likely that she's telling the truth and that he's a low life, and I don't think I'd have trouble with a "on the balance of probabilities" type verdict, it doesn't give me certainty that this is so.

You appear to have that complete certainty. Genuine question here - how have you come to that position of certainty?

I actually wonder how many posting on this thread, right across the spectrum of opinion, were aware of it, given that nobody mentioned it despite its obvious relevance to the discussion until the BBC link was posted recently.

Thanks.

Thanks, but really no need to apologise.

Yes I do, and that’s a fair question.

It’s a combination of factors really. I’ll admit I already had a rather low opinion of Randy Andy (as he was known decades before this all came to light) already, given the cash for access scam he and his ex wife were running, his pompous insistence that his daughters be princesses etc… Though I’m not a republican, and have no issue woth the royal family as an institution.

Then there was his continued association with Epstein even after he had been convicted of sex trafficking (which showed terrible judgement), the car crash of an interview with his ludicrous attempts to explain it away, the royal families response to that interview, the believability of Ms Giuffre’s account, the photo… it all added up to make me believe her over him.

But then the final coup de gras was the settlement.  You just don’t pay someone that much money and issue a grovelling statement that does all but admit it to someone you’ve never even met, I don’t see how old your mum is or what jubilee she’s having... It’s just beyond the realms of believability for me.

So yes, I’m certain of it. It’s the only explanation that makes sense in the context of these factors. 

OK, but the accusations in this case are about an organised paedophile ring who used Maxwell as a non-threatening female to befriend high school kids and gradually groom them to provide massages and then sex to Epstein and his rich and powerful friends. They also had a guy in France who just killed himself luring girls in with a modelling agency. In the process moved the girls across state lines in the US from Florida to a private ranch in another state and across international borders to a private island in the caribbean and in the case of Giuffre to the UK.

The crossing state lines and international borders is what led to the Federal trafficking charges. 

When you lay it out like that, it's a bit like multiplying probabilities, although each one may have a chance of being wrong (let's arbitrarily say 10%), the chances of say 4 things being wrong are 0.1^4; i.e. 100th of a %.

The actual settlement amount I don't see as being a "problem", but the statement did seem so very much like it had been totally written by the other side, and that did surprise me - there just didn't seem to be much compromise in it.

Although I haven't got your certainty, I do still think it's the explanation that makes by far the most sense.

A couple of general observations about litigation and witnesses.

First, in most civil trials both sides' witnesses are telling the truth as they see it. People forget, they manufacture memories, and they just see and experience the same events differently from other people. There are famous studies which demonstrate that two disinterested witnesses of a road traffic accident may both be prepared to swear with absolute certainty to diametrically opposed versions of the event. To say that you do not believe a witness' account of events is not, by any means, to call him or her a liar.

Second, assuming US litigation is anything like ours, the parties set out their case at the outset in documents we call pleadings, which are publicly available. I would imagine that it is in those that Ms Giuffre has said that Andrew knew she was 17 and had been trafficked. In general, parties will not plead one case only, so they will say, for instance 'know or must have known, or must be taken to have known, or been recklessly indifferent to.....'. I would think it likely this case is no different. So I doubt whether Ms Giuffre has in fact committed herself to saying that Andrew did in fact know either of those two things, whatever the papers might say. Also, what it seems to one person 'must be apparent' to someone else is by no means always in fact apparent to that other person. This is a typical case where both sides may genuinely and passionately believe their own version of events (on this point; obviously whether they ever met and/or had sex are different matters and it's hard to think one party is not lying there).

Third, and repeating myself, it is naive to think that people who settle cases even for very large sums, especially civil cases in front of a jury where there is more or less no limit to what a jury might award if they take against you, do so because they think they are in fact in the wrong. It is always a calculation of probabilities and outcomes.

Last, remember that Carolyn Andriano, one of the witnesses in the Maxwell trial, has told the press that Giuffre told her in 2001 that she had slept with Andrew, by way of a text which read 'I got to sleep with him.'. CA has already been believed by one jury and it seems likely she would have been believed again, which would have been troublesome for both sides in different ways.

jcm

Well, in my limited experience in trials some people and their lawyers are out to push the truth to the absolute limit of what they think they can get away with in order to further their financial interests and avoid personal embarrassment.  And some people are lying c*nts. who are guilty as sin.

I've been an expert and fact witness in multiple lawsuits between large corporations in US federal court.  I've testified in US federal court in San Francisco.  I've been in a minibus full of US trial lawyers on the way to court hyped up ready to do their stuff and I detected absolutely no reticence in calling the witnesses on the other side of that case liars.  It was pretty much their favourite word.

Sure, they will write the documents as broad as possible and say everything every which way because it is before discovery and they want to have some theory they can argue left when they get to trial.

Again, I'm not a lawyer, but my impression is the US system is less genteel than the Scottish or English one.  The US has a different tradition and they're proud of having a bit of 'cowboy' in them.  Maybe more on the west coast than New York.   The judges in civil trials also handle criminal cases and there's a bit of a hard edge to them.  They don't f*ck around.

It's a poker game for sure. The americans like that.

If the jury believe that then Andrew is guilty.  Doesn't matter if it implies consent because all the elements are there: she was a minor in Florida, she was taken out of the US to have sex and she actually had sex with Andrew. 

I am not an American lawyer, but not really. As far as I understand my American colleagues, you cannot, as an adult, have consensual sex with a legal minor. Even if the minor consented, it would be statutory rape at state level, and, if crossing of state lines is involved, the federal charges of trafficking etc. come into play.

In PAs position I would CAREFULLY consider which countries I could still travel to.

Let's hope the prick is stupid or arrogant enough to end up in a US court eventually!

CB