MP Concerned Public Money Could Have Been Used in Prince Andrew’s Payout to Virginia Giuffre

Earlier this week, the royal reached an out-of-court-settlement with his long-time accuser Virginia Giuffre, who claimed that she was forced into an intimate relationship with the prince. She claimed he allegedly slept with her on three separate occasions, including when she was 17, considered a minor in most US states.

Prince Andrew’s payout to Virginia Giuffre will be discussed in Parliament, Andy McDonald, an MP for Middlesbrough, has said. The legislator told the BBC that he intends to bring up the issue when MPs return to Westminster next week. McDonald says his main concern is that no public money is being used to pay the duke’s accuser.

"This is a person of very high profile involved in a case where his position of authority and privilege has been allegedly abused and it is an enormous sum of money. We don’t know the precise figure but there is a risk that this will be at the public’s expense so we need to have that resolved. We need to know exactly where this money is coming from", the MP said in an interview with the BBC.

The lawmaker emphasised that the issue will not go away until the public gets all the information about the payout process. He was echoed by several royal pundits as well as lawyers.

Mark Stephens, an international reputation lawyer from the firm Howard Kennedy, said the Duke of York risks doing more "reputational damage" to the British monarchy if he fails to disclose details of where the settlement money comes from.

"I think there’s equal concern that it comes from the royal family and what they want to see is that Andrew is paying out of his own pocket – that he’s personally being financially punished here", Mark Stephens said.

The development comes amid heightened attention to Prince Andrew’s battle with Virginia Giuffre, which has dominated the headlines in the United Kingdom for around four years. The American woman is one of the alleged victims of Jeffrey Epstein, a US financier who was charged in 2019 with running a sex trafficking network of minors.

Epstein and Prince Andrew were friends, and the royal visited his mansions and a private island, where multiple women claim Epstein and his powerful acquaintances abused young women and girls.

Virginia Giuffre has claimed that when she was 17 (a minor in most US states), she was trafficked to London by Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and forced to have sex with Prince Andrew. The Duke of York has consistently denied the allegations, saying he has an alibi. He also alleged that he had never met Giuffre, despite there being at least one photo showing the two together as well as testimonies of two people who said they reportedly saw the duke and his accuser together.

Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, and Ghislaine Maxwell. This photo was included in an affidavit in which Giuffre alleged that she was directed to have sex with Andrew

© Photo : Florida Southern District Court

In August, Giuffre filed a civil lawsuit in New York seeking "accountability" from the royal and demanding an unspecified amount in damages from him. His lawyers tried to have the case dismissed, but a US judge ruled that it should go ahead. Reports said that neither of the sides was interested in the settlement – Prince Andrew wanted to clear his name, while Giuffre wanted the case to go to trial.

However, earlier this week both sides reached a settlement, under which the Duke of York recognised that Giuffre had "suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks", without elaborating further on the issue. In addition to a "substantial donation" to Giuffre’s charity for victims, Prince Andrew agreed to pay her an undisclosed sum.

The Telegraph writes, citing its sources, that the Duke forked out £12 million ($16 million), while other UK media suggested that sum is somewhere between $20-30 million.

It is believed that even the number mentioned by The Telegraph is an insurmountable sum for the Duke of York, who receives a Royal Navy pension and a stipend from the Queen’s Duchy of Lancaster.

UK media previously reported that the Queen is likely to have helped her son foot the bill. The monarch, whose personal fortune is estimated to be some 360 million pounds ($470 million), has several sources of income, the said Duchy of Lancaster and the Sovereign Grant, which is funded by the taxpayers.

However, the money from the latter does not go directly into the pockets of the royal family, but is used to pay for travel inside the United Kingdom and overseas, salaries for employees of the royal household and covers the cost of maintenance of royal residencies.

Last month, UK media wrote that Prince Andrew was in the process of selling a £16.6 million house he bought in Switzerland in 2014 in order to cover his legal fees and potentially the out-of-court settlement.