The royal family’s worse nightmare may have come after Prince Andrew’s camp fails to dismiss his sexual assault lawsuit out of court. This means the Duke of York will have to face a U.S. trial and a royal editor believes it upsets the royals.
Prince Andrew’s lawyers tried to dismiss his case after citing the deal Virginia Roberts Giuffre, his sexual assault accuser, had with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. However, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected the motion for not seeing its relevance to the duke’s case.
Does Prince Andrew Make the Royal Family Devastated?
Daily Mirror royal editor Russell Myers believed the royal family would be “devastated” with Judge Kaplan’s decision.
On the Pod Save the Queen podcast earlier this month, he said that Prince Andrew’s back “is against the wall” right now. He added that it is the royal family’s “absolute worst nightmare,” especially it happens at the time Queen Elizabeth II is about to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee.
“The Royal Family have this hanging over them on top of Prince Andrew is a very grave situation indeed,” he said, via Express.
With that being said, Myers is convinced that the troubled prince will not attend the celebration of his mother’s 70th year on the throne.
He continued that his reputation is now in the gutter and he may have no chance to redeem himself and continue to do his royal duties.
At the age of 61 and having this issue about him going on for years, Myers believed it would be hard for Prince Andrew to “have any way back.”
"We are certainly not going to be seeing him anywhere near the Platinum Jubilee celebrations over the next 12 months,” he said. “Where does he go from here? It will be a lonely place for him at the moment because there are very few allies in his corner.”
The palace has even distanced itself from him. After being thrown out of his office, he has been stripped off of his royal titles and patronages. Now, Prince Andrew has to face his case as an ordinary citizen.
The Rejection Of Prince Andrew’s Request To Dismiss His Case
Meanwhile, Judge Kaplan didn’t grant Prince Andrew’s motion to dismiss, which meant he might face trial between Sept. 22 and Dec. 22, CNN noted.
"Ms. Giuffre's complaint is neither 'unintelligible' nor 'vague' nor 'ambiguous,'" Judge Kaplan wrote in the opinion obtained by People. "It alleges discrete incidents of sexual abuse in particular circumstances at three identifiable locations. It identifies to whom it attributes that sexual abuse."
However, a palace spokesman refused to talk about the case, saying they couldn’t comment on the ongoing legal matter.
Prince Andrew’s lawyers asked to dismiss Giuffre’s civil sexual assault lawsuit after revealing she had a $500,000 settlement with Epstein. Here, she agreed not to file a legal complaint against any other “potential defendant.”
However, the document didn’t include Prince Andrew’s name but only Epstein and “any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant." So Giuffre’s attorneys stressed the settlement had nothing to do with her case against the controversial royal.
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