Embattled Prince Andrew retreats from royal duties

Prince Andrew: I regret my association with Jeffrey Epstein.

Queen Elizabeth has given permission for her third child, Prince Andrew, to “step back from public duties for the foreseeable future” after days of mounting pressure following his unrepentant interview with the BBC about his friendship with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The Duke of York also said he was “willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations if required” over the US probe into Epstein.

The development came on a day when telecoms giant BT said it would not work with a digital skills scheme that counts the duke as patron, amid a growing exodus of companies and other institutions after Andrew’s interview at the weekend and pressure from a woman who says the convicted child sex offender trafficked her to London to meet the royal and have sex with him.

His effective suspension from duties by his mother was announced in a statement issued in the prince’s name, which said: “It has become clear to me over the last few days that the circumstances relating to my former association with Jeffrey Epstein has become a major disruption to my family’s work and the valuable work going on in the many organisations and charities that I am proud to support.

“Therefore, I have asked Her Majesty if I may step back from public duties for the foreseeable future, and she has given her permission.

He added: “I continue to unequivocally regret my ill-judged association with Jeffrey Epstein. His suicide has left many unanswered questions, particularly for his victims, and I deeply sympathise with everyone who has been affected and wants some form of closure. I can only hope that, in time, they will be able to rebuild their lives.

“Of course, I am willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations, if required.”

The duke’s offer to offer of help could be a potentially major moment for the US investigation as the FBI widens the scope of its investigation in an attempt to identify more of Epstein’s victims.

Andrew had already said in his BBC interview, which aired on Saturday, that he was prepared to testify under oath “if push came to shove and the legal advice was to do so.”

However, the pressure on him was ratcheted up on Monday when a fresh Epstein accuser, who claims the financier committed a “vicious, prolonged sexual assault” against her when she was 15, called on Andrew to come forward with information about the convicted sex offender.

Prince Andrew does not remember having this photo taken with Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre, in 2001.

The woman, who identifies herself as “Jane Doe 15”, appealed to him at a press conference in Los Angeles, where she and the lawyer Gloria Allred announced a lawsuit against Epstein’s estate.

She is one of about a dozen women suing the late financier’s estate for alleged sexual abuses.

A claim by Andew during the BBC interview to have first met Epstein in 1999 was also thrown into doubt on Wednesday after it emerged that the prince’s previous chief of staff said the two men had met in “the early 1990s”.

The claim was made by Alastair Watson, Andrew’s private secretary for nine years until 2012, who wrote a letter to the Times in 2011 in order to reject reports that the prince was a friend of Saif Gaddafi, son of the former Libyan dictator. Buckingham Palace pushed back at suggestions of an apparent discrepancy, with a spokesperson saying: “The duke’s words in the interview speak for themselves.”

During Saturday’s bombshell BBC Newsnight interview, Andrew was pressed on his friendship with Epstein – who killed himself in a Manhattan jail in August following his arrest on sex trafficking charges.

Andrew claims he met Epstein through Ghislaine Maxwell – the daughter of the media baron Robert Maxwell – who has been accused of serving as Epstein’s procurer.

Virginia Giuffre has claimed that Epstein flew her to London on his private jet around 2001, when she was 17 years old. After dining and dancing, Giuffre and the prince had a sexual encounter at Maxwell’s Belgravia home, she has alleged. Andrew denies the claim. Maxwell has also emphatically denied wrongdoing. (Guardian)