Will Prince Andrew use public money for Giuffre's case? MPs want answers
3 Min Read
Old parliamentary customs are obstacles in the way of investigating into whether Andrew will pay for his sex offense settlement with public money or not.
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Prince Andrew, sex offender.
The Sun reported that British MPs are unable to investigate whether Prince Andrew used public funds to pay for his settlement with sexual abuse victim, Virginia Giuffre.
Though he denied all allegations, the settlement condition was that Andrew stops denying allegations of his sexual misconduct, with $16.3 million to be paid to Giuffre.
The reason behind the MPs' inability to probe into the situation is an ancient custom that prohibits the discussion of royals in the parliament.
Labour MP Andy McDonald wrote to minister Steve Barclay, the new chief of staff of Downing Street, asking for a confirmation that no taxpayer cash was used to pay for the settlement.
In response, McDonald said, “That would just be a step too far. I can't predict what form that protest would take… But people would be inordinately upset if taxpayers' monies was used as a payoff for litigation, from a man who was hitherto quite content to be associated with a pedophile [Jeffrey Epstein] and child trafficker [Ghislaine Maxwell]."
The prohibition of bringing up royalty in the parliament will be an obstacle: “Raising an issue relating to the Royal Family in the House is fraught with difficulties.”
The chief nevertheless asked the minister to establish that "no public funds have been or will be used in part or whole in satisfaction of the settlement."
"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," McDonald said.
It was said that part of the settlement will be donated by Queen Elizabeth II.
Mark Stephens, an international reputation lawyer from the Howard Kennedy law firm, said Prince Andrew will only be damaging his reputation further if he does not disclose with what money he's going to pay the settlement.
"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," Stephens said.
Just two weeks ago, it was revealed that the Metropolitan police in London launched a probe against Andrew's brother, Prince Charles, on the count of handing Saudi billionaire UK citizenship and knighthood in exchange for donations.
