Ghislaine Maxwell's Brother Suggests Why Prince Andrew Likely Opted for Settlement With His Accuser

Prince Andrew reached a settlement with Virginia Giuffre in February this year, having agreed to shell out a significant sum of money as part of the deal.

Ian Maxwell, brother of Jeffrey Epstein’s former associate Ghislaine Maxwell, recently offered his take on Prince Andrew’s settlement with Virginia Giuffre (nee Roberts), Epstein’s former "sex slave" who alleged that Jeffrey and Ghislaine forced her to have sex with the Duke of York when she was only 17.

According to MailOnline, while the British royal ended up paying an estimated £12 million in his deal with Giuffree, Ghislaine’s brother suggested that Andrew may have had no other option in the matter.

"I suppose we are never really going to know because it’s Prince Andrew and it’s all been swept away however this is the Jubilee year of his mother, he is a dutiful son", Ian said during an interview with journalist Jay Beecher. "This really causes her, it’s obvious it would any mother, causes her immense pain, he’s just exceptionally embarrassed he doesn’t want to do anything to upset the year and I think that he had to fold his tent, really and do the best he could by the Crown".

He also speculated that, while he supposes "it suited both parties that ultimately it went the way it went", he also thinks that Prince Andrew "may well have wished to take his chance and he may well have gone home on it".

"I think he is a very high profile target but we are just not going to know, I think it’s interesting that he ended up paying what seemed a very large amount of money to her non-profit organisation and that’s unusual", Ian remarked. "Maybe she didn’t want too much money coming to her personally and maybe it makes her attackable".

In February, Prince Andrew’s legal team reached the out-of-court settlement with Giuffre, with the Duke of York accepting that Virginia was a "victim of abuse".

The royal, however, purportedly did not offer any admission of liability or statement of innocence regarding the Giuffre’s allegations in the settlement, just as he consistently denied her claims before.